Por José Ramón Díaz-Torremocha
(Conferencia Santa María la Mayor en Guadalajara)
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She knew what Wisdom was, but she had heard less about the Holy Spirit. However, she was so clean, so good, that she knew that the Lord would not send her anything bad. She trusted in Grace. The angel's announcement, first because it was unexpected and then because of the magnitude of the gift, was to leave the young maiden confused, although in peace.
After a moment's meditation she must have realised the words of the angel and in her innermost being, she who had been born cleansed of original sin, sensed that He had chosen her as nothing less than the Mother of His Son and of the future of Israel, the Chosen People. As we know, she was right: the fruit of the Holy Spirit in her womb was the Saviour of the world: the Son of God, the One who would deliver us from sin and yet whom we would brutally sacrifice and whom we still mistreat by our actions and often by the lack of them, not following the Good that He is inspiring in us.
A good priest and very dear friend already on the other side of the mirror, and I believe in the presence of the Merciful One, often used to repeat: "We are doing badly, - as a Church - because we do not share God's Grace". It is a great truth.
Mary did share the Grace and from the first moments of Her pregnancy as Luke tells us: "Then Mary arose and went with haste to the mountain, to a village in Judea" (Lk 1:39). She could not fail to share the grace she had received and went there to share the great news with a beloved relative.
We too, without deserving it, often receive graces that we take for granted, as a matter of course, and do not share with anyone. It is a great mistake and sometimes even a sin of omission. Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that "The charitable action today can and must embrace all people and all their needs" (1). We must not forget, as the Pope kept reminding us, that ".... Christian charity is first and foremost the response to an immediate need in a given situation...."(2). Whatever needs the suffering person feels, not just what seems to us to be the right one.
Right now, the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul at international level, we are about to elect a new president and some of us may receive the Grace of having nearby and knowing a fellow member who we think could perform that service very well. Do we keep it to ourselves? Do we expect the President General or the Council to be the one to suggest a member to us? Sometimes, when I observe this kind of slackness in a fellow member, I wonder if we are aware of our duty to the vocation of service that one day brought us to "The Conferences" and which, as a good act, must have been inspired by God Himself.
In the Rule established for the five-year period 1968/1973, our then President General, Pierre Chouard, wrote in the Preamble to the Rule of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul: "The word vocation used several times by Pope Paul VI (today Saint Paul VI) in his address to the Society, to the Conferences, clearly expresses the deep meaning of the unity so specifically felt by all its members".
This vocation held in unity should make us feel today the need to elect the best among us in the approaching election for the general presidency. While the moment of election arrives, let us ask the Holy Spirit to inspire us to elect the best person who will help us with prayer and action to work in a world that is, in general, increasingly distant by action or inaction, from the message of Christ.
But let us remember that a new Christmas is coming, we are already on its doorstep. Allow me, my dear friends, fellow members and readers, to wish you all a peaceful and joyful Christmas with your family. May those who have their families far away, who are alone, feel the spiritual company of so many of us who wish to wrap them in the closeness of our prayers and, if possible, in our fraternal embrace.
To Christ, always through and with Mary.
[1] Carta Encíclica Deus Caritas Est, 30a
[2] Id, 31a