Year: 2020

The Wisdom of God is light in darkness. From the light of God, we meet with the depths of our being, we recognize ourselves in Him. In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers us a parable full of symbols, one of them is the light in the darkness of the night. Also symbols are the ten virgins, their lamps, the oil. The wisdom and prudence of the first five virgins is intimately linked to the Wisdom that comes from God. To be awake is not to keep one’s eyes open, with fear and unease, but to be attentive to God with peace and serenity, to be prepared by fulfilling the task He has entrusted to us in His Church. We will be prepared if we nourish the light of faith with the oil of love for others. Because God is love, there can be no authentic faith in those who do not truly love.

In his announcement this November 1, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, emphasized that in the Solemnity of All Saints, the Church remembers not only those who have been proclaimed saints throughout history, but also so many brothers who have lived their Christian life in the midst of a simple and hidden existence , among which are many of our family and friends. They, he said, “are in heaven, they can pray for us and we imitate them.”

The Church celebrates the Solemnity of All Saints. Today we look to heaven to thank God, praise Him, Glorify Him, bless Him for the immense multitude of his children who are already in his presence and enjoy full life with Him. They are the saints whose names only God knows, who have not been beatified or canonized in the Church, but in their lives have identified with Christ. The Pope assures that Jesus has explained simply what it is to be holy: “He did so when He left us the beatitudes. They’re like the Christian’s identity card.” To the question of how it is done to become a good Christian, Francis tells us that it is necessary to do, each in his own way, what Jesus says in the sermon of beatitudes. “In them is drawn the face of the Master, who we are called to transparent in the daily life of our lives.”

In his speech this Sunday, October 25, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, thanked God for the work of consecrated religious working in homes for the elderly and disabled. Among the communities whose hospitable charism is an obvious reality in the Haban archdiocese, the cardinal mentioned the Daughters of Charity, the Little Sisters of the Homeless Elders, the Handmaids of St. Joseph, the Religious of Mary Immaculate, the Brothers of St. John of God and the Congregation Martha and Mary. He also thanked the youth and adults for helping them care for those in these holy places.

God has created us out of love and to love. Our essence is also to love, to love God, to others and to ourselves, to love as God loves us, to love because God loves us. God’s love we have known him in Jesus Christ. His new mandate reminds us to love one another as He has loved us, or better, as He continues to love us. And his love consists in the surrender of one’s life. His mandate, rather than a law or a standard to be fulfilled, is to live what we are and for what we have been created by Him, which is infinite, total, compassionate, and merciful love, eternal.