We spoke previously about the profound demand of seeking the truth in order to obey our Pope, the Vicar of Christ, understanding the importance of the encyclical Veritatis Splendor in which the Holy Father denounces all the deviations in moral theology that have arisen during the last fifty or sixty years. There has been a fairly general shift toward liberalism which leads--and this is something the Holy Father stresses--to a confusion between sincerity and truth, and which results in making man the measure of good and evil, according to his own conscience. Here we encounter once more the great temptation at the beginning, the serpent's deceptive words to Eve: "You will be like gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5). In this encyclical, the Holy Father shows the extent of the evil in the Church.
Seeking the Truth

In the face of this fierce attack by the devil in today's Church, we must respond with arms that are not the same as those used by the other side. Let us never forget this passage from the Old Testament which sheds so much light, the passage where we see the young boy, David, fighting against the giant, Goliath (cf. 1 Sam. 17:40 ff). Young David has no weapons, while Goliath is armed and clad in armor from head to toe, with a sword to match his size. Confronting David with his slingshot, Goliath is full of scorn and smirks: "So this is all the people of Israel have to offer as their defender"! Is this not what we are living at present? Goliath is certain of his victory. He has suitable weapons, intellectual arms which seem today to be the only ones capable of leading humanity, arms that take their inspiration from Hegelian dialectics or from scientific and technological progress. People want to impose thereby a sort of positivism which is not scientific but is a false philosophical ideology since it is based on a conception of the intelligence which is not true. Facing this modern Goliath, facing these atheistic ideologies--which have come from Europe, we must not forget--and each of which is an "anti-beatitude," we must not take up the same weapons; that is, we must not use the same Hegelian dialectic, science and modern techniques. We must understand that God gives us light weapons, those of the intelligence seeking wisdom, weapons that alone can be placed at the service of faith.

The Holy Father sees in Saint Thomas Aquinas one of the masters--if not the master par excellence--of such an intelligence placing itself at the service of truth. Many today are disdainful of him, saying: "Thomas Aquinas was fine for the Middle Ages; but today he is outdated." To say that he is outdated, however, would be to claim that the truth of Thomas Aquinas is an historical truth and not a truth that is a wisdom, that touches the very mystery of God the Creator, a truth that thus remains beyond time and that we must rediscover during every age in order to place our intelligence, in its purest aspect, at the service of faith and to better understand all the confusions that can exist today. Here we are truly like young David who confronts Goliath with a mere slingshot, a light weapon, yet a weapon capable of reaching Goliath in the vulnerability that he tries to hide. Like David we must accept the light weapons consisting of prayer and the search for the truth, knowing that the Holy Spirit is there leading us and helping us. The Holy Spirit likes us to seek the truth with a lot of eagerness and perseverance, even if we must work very hard for this. Are we not made for this--to work for God and to give Him all our strength?

Receiving Mary

In order to persevere in this search for the truth, the Congregation of Saint John, all the friends of Saint John and all those who want to remain faithful, must live very deeply by the mystery of the Virgin Mary. It is not without reason that the Church proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and that of the Assumption of Mary in 1950 (these two great mysteries which are at the beginning and end of Mary's life), surrounding and enveloping, as it were, the mystery of Papal infallibility (the dogma proclaimed in 1870). When we reflect on this, we see how the Holy Spirit gives us His light for every period of the Church. If the Church had not proclaimed the infallibility of the Pope during Vatican I, today when faced with the often pernicious and radical attacks directed against the Holy Father's teaching, especially pertaining to morality, one might be tempted to say: "He is the only one proclaiming this; is this truly what God wants to say to our world today"? But the Holy Spirit, who is much more intelligent than men and who leads the Church, had anticipated this. Let us never forget that it is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church and who, in the Church, guides in a very particular way contemplative life and all those who seek the truth.

Thus if the Church proclaimed the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and of the Assumption as enveloping Peter, it is indeed to allow us to understand that the Holy Spirit wants us to be extremely docile with respect to Mary. Let us choose her more than ever and let us give her our whole heart and all our intelligence. Let us ask her to be closer and closer to us in order to guide us, to lead us.

Let us consider the extraordinary act whereby Jesus gives His Mother to John. Jesus accepts the Cross out of obedience to the Father (cf. Jn. 14:31); but when He gives Mary to John, it is not something imposed or commanded by the Father. Of course, it is in harmony with what the Father asks of him, i.e., radical poverty; nevertheless a father likes the initiatives of his children. When a mother gives an order to a child who is beginning to grow, nothing touches her heart more than seeing the child not only do what is asked, but anticipate the desires of his mother's heart. This touches the mother's heart in an amazing way because it shows that the child has entered fully into the spirit of what is asked of him, and that instead of only obeying in a material way, he obeys with particular love and tenderness. Can we not say the same about this act of Jesus toward John? Once again, Jesus obeys the Father in accepting the mystery of the Cross; but the Father did not expressly ask Him to give us the one whom He Himself had given Jesus. The Father, as father, could not do this. A father cannot ask a beloved son to give the one whom he had given to him as mother. True, the gift of Mary that the Father gives Jesus is eternal and thus it remains, yet Jesus, wanting to obey as the beloved Son, wants to go to the very end in obedience, i.e., to go beyond the materiality of obedience by entering into the spirit of what the Father wants for Him in the offering of the Cross. The Father wants Him to be a beloved Son that goes to the end in the total gift of His whole self, and this is why Jesus will go so far as to give His Mother. It is important for us to discover the manner in which Jesus gives His Mother to John, to discover that He gives her in a totally free act, an act whose spontaneity comes directly from the love in Christ's heart for John. To express all His love to John, to tell him how much He loves him, Jesus gives him His own Mother. He could not express the quality of His love for John in a deeper or more direct way than by giving him His own Mother from the Cross, that she might be the mother of John. When we really look at this tenderness of Jesus' heart and try to live by it, we shed tears of love. It is so wonderful of Jesus to enable John, His beloved disciple, yet still a disciple, to have the same mother as He, the one whom Jesus first formed during the thirty years of His hidden life, then during the three years of His apostolic life....

This is something that Saint John emphasizes. He shows us that at Cana, Mary has a particular role to play and she plays it by presenting to Jesus the state of misery and poverty of servants who have no more wine to serve. It is inconceivable for there to be no more wine at a wedding feast in wine-making country, since wine "gladdens the heart of man" (Ps. 104:15), and at a wedding feast, everyone must be joyful together. After a reminder that this is the first "sign," the first miracle that Jesus performs--and that He performs because His Mother is there and tells Him, "They have no wine"--John stresses the fact that Mary follows Jesus to Capernaum (cf. Jn. 2:11). Mary does not return to Nazareth. Mary thus followed Jesus during His entire apostolic life and it was thanks to her that the holy women, by joining her, were able to follow Jesus in His apostolic life, with the Apostles. Mary took this initiative under the motion of the Holy Spirit, and she did it on behalf of all mothers whose sons are priests, on behalf of all mothers whose sons or daughters are consecrated to God in religious life.

Here I am thinking in a very special way of all the mothers and fathers who offer a son or daughter to God in the Community of Saint John. It is wonderful, because the vocation of their son or daughter demands that they go to the very end, that they give themselves totally, completely. This is what happened with Mary and Mary did this for all the Apostles' mothers. She gives the example in following Jesus during His entire apostolic life. It is she who receives the word of God as the "good soil" (cf. Mt. 13:8 and 23; Mk. 4:8 and 20; Lk. 8:8 and 15). It is for this reason that she is immaculate: to be the mother who receives all the words of her beloved Son. Thus no word of Christ fell only in bad soil or rocky ground, since Mary's heart was there to receive all Christ's words and keep them so that they might bear all their fruit. These words are found in Saint Luke, but we can think that it was John who communicated them to him. This we shall see in heaven! It is very interesting to look at what comes from Saint John in Saint Luke. We must never separate Luke and John, and there are many things in Saint Luke that come from Saint John. Good exegetes of Luke and John do not hesitate to say this (here I am thinking of Father Feuillet and of Father Braun, the Dominican who was the chaplain of King Baudoin).

What is certain is that Mary was the good soil that kept the words of Jesus that they might bear all their fruit. And if Jesus gave Mary to John, if He willed this maternal mediation between Himself and John, it was so that John might have the same mother tongue as He and might receive all the secrets of Mary's heart, which were those of the heart of Jesus. For there were secrets that John had not understood--John was an Apostle like the others!--yet Jesus loved him gratuitously. At the Last Supper He shows this well: He makes a gesture of tenderness and affection for John, before the others, and this is absolutely gratuitous. According to tradition, John was the youngest (this shows that one is following Saint John when one enters the Congregation of Saint John at a young age!), he was the "Benjamin" of all the Apostles and the most tenderly loved. Saint Thomas stresses this when he says that one of the aspects of John's sanctity was his youth (See the Commentary of the Gospel of Saint John, XXI, 2639 and XIII, 1804). And Saint Thomas does not hesitate to say that one can make gestures of tenderness toward young people that are not made toward older people... that is how it is!

Let us consider this gesture of tenderness Jesus makes toward John at the moment when He institutes the Eucharist: He presses him to His heart, and Judas is present. Judas must have been terribly jealous of John; he could not bear the loving tenderness Jesus had for John. He was jealous. This we can see: it was when Lazarus' sister Mary anointed Jesus' feet with costly and perfumed ointment that Judas exploded: "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii...?" (Jn. 12:5). Judas was correct on an economic level; he knew how to assess the value of things. Three hundred denarii! And the denarius was the salary for a day's work...thus we can see what this meant. Mary, Lazarus' sister, was keeping this ointment so that she might one day use it to anoint Jesus' feet, and she used it during this meal of thanksgiving just before the Passion. And Judas could not tolerate that because he could not get the ointment back; he could not run back, snatch it up and keep it for himself. It was given freely, in a totally gratuitous way, like the widow's offering (cf. Mk. 12:41-44; Lk. 21:1-4). This is what Jesus loves: loving freely, giving freely, and going to the end. From the point of view of justice, one must be exact, precise. In the order of love, one can go to the very end; but for those who do not love, this is always sheer folly....

Gratuitousness of Love

Mary was given out of pure gratuitousness. For Jesus suffices in all things. Yet Jesus is "the splendor of the truth," the truth grasped out of love and for a love that both rises up to the Father and descends upon all men, in superabundance. This love given gratuitously must be received gratuitously (cf. Mt. 10:8). And Mary is given to us in this gratuitous way. That is why it is often so difficult to enter into the mystery of Mary: because in our world today it is very difficult for us to enter into the gratuitousness of love. We understand justice quite well, but justice remains something very rigorous. Only love is always excessive and goes "to the end" (Jn. 13:1). No one pays his taxes in excess! Not a single French citizen, not a single European, not a single American would pay his taxes in excess! While we always love excessively, superabundantly. (We might add that paying taxes is not the measure of love. Over and above the taxes that are to be paid, one must love his country gratuitously, especially during wartime, by offering one's life to save the religious patrimony of one's country, and one's Christian patrimony if one lives in a Christian country.)

Mary is always discovered in a gratuitous way; and if one does not enter into this gratuitousness of love, one cannot understand anything about the mystery of Mary. I think the Community of Saint John was founded to bear witness to this gratuitousness of love, to bear witness to this very great mystery: Mary is given in a superabundance of love and she expresses something that Jesus could not express. That is the great mystery. Mary is the superabundance of the mystery of the Redemption, and she allows us to grasp the fact that the Redemption, while it is indeed a mystery of satisfaction and thus of justice, is above all and more than anything else a mystery of superabundant love. Mary is given to John so that John, in his heart as the beloved and faithful disciple, faithful even to the Cross, may receive the mystery of Mary according to this modality of gratuitousness and superabundance. And Saint John asks that we ourselves receive Mary in this superabundant gratuitousness. Because the covenant with Jesus, the New Covenant, is a mystery of love, and love is only perfectly itself in gratuitousness and superabundance. That is why, when we reason too much, we no longer understand love. When we reason at the level of justice and when we look at everything in light of justice, we are always unhappy and we no longer understand love. We try to measure love with our own judgment, and then we are a bit like Judas: Lazarus' sister, Mary, could have refrained from using this ointment; she could have kept it for the poor. She could have sold it for three hundred pieces of silver, i.e., ten times more than the price given for Christ, the sum that Judas the traitor accepted to hand Jesus over....

Mary, given to John, enables him to understand better Jesus' words. It is through the heart of Mary that John receives God's word. It is through what Mary kept in her heart that John continues to be educated by her and that he gives us his Gospel, the Gospel of the secrets of the hearts of Jesus and Mary. John's Gospel is indeed Jesus' word received in good soil and returning to the Father (cf. Isa. 55:10-11) bearing all its fruit. How important it is to understand what is most precious in the Gospel of Saint John! And what is most precious in this Gospel is what is most precious in the heart of Jesus Himself: the return to the Father, the Vado ad Patrem (cf. Jn. 14:12 and 28; 16:17 and 28; 17:11 and 13; 20:17). This is really what is most precious in Jesus' heart, since this is what allows Him to live the mystery of the Cross. He must go through the Cross to return to the Father: "It is to your advantage that I go away..." (Jn. 16:7). He goes away by means of the Cross and He accepts this out of love for the Father and for us. Mary accepts this also out of love for the Father and for us. She accepts it for John and she accepts it for each one of us. If we understand this, we have, as it were, the key that allows us to grasp the mystery of Mary in our lives, in our faith. This is said in a hidden way at the beginning of the Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation is "the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 1:1); it is the Revelation. What is said is not a revelation, but the revelation of Jesus, which is given through an angel. Jesus sends his angel to John so that he may be capable of receiving this revelation.

If we try to understand, can we not say that this "Angel" is the queen of angels, Mary, Queen of Angels and Prophets, who is sent to John? The entire Book of Revelation is received in John's heart through the heart of Mary. And the entire Gospel is communicated to us by John based on the secrets that Mary revealed to him. Is this not why John could not write his Gospel before this? It was because of the secrets of Mary.... Yet when John received this "revelation of Jesus Christ," all the secrets of Mary were found written in capital letters through this great revelation of the Apocalypse. Then John was able, in the light of the Apocalypse, to reveal to us all the secrets of Mary; they were for us. The Book of Revelation showed us this: they were for the Church.

Here the Holy Spirit leads us in a mysterious way, helping us to enter into the mystery of Mary and John. For we can say that just as the Song of Songs in a certain way brings to completion the great revelation of the Old Testament, the revelation of the New Testament is another "song of songs." It is a song of love from Jesus to the bride. The bride is the Church, and the bride is Mary, and the bride is John's heart and our hearts. The Gospel is this great song of love for us, and it is Mary who teaches us to live by it, to understand that Jesus never stops calling us, never stops telling us that He loves us, never stops telling us that He is love (cf. 1 Jn. 4-7 and 16). This is difficult for us to understand, however, because we always come back to justice and we always want to maintain our rights. As soon as our rights seem even remotely threatened, we are irritated and no longer listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit; and we forget Mary. Mary enables us to always remain in a good mood--that is what is so extraordinary--and to maintain in our hearts a constant and loving joy. It is of paramount importance that we enter fully into this great mystery: that Mary help us to read the Gospel of Saint John. When we read the Gospel of Saint John, this new song of songs, let us understand how Jesus looks at each person in particular, at each one of us. We must ask Mary to give us the key that allows us to enter into this dialogue of love and that allows our hearts to be transformed by and in the heart of Jesus.

Sunday, October 30, 1994
Third Conference in Rome