Lava Lava

O LE UPU NEI I FAITAUGA TELE
mo Tesema 9th, 2015
Filifili Faamanatuga o St. Juan Diego

Tusitusiga faʻa Liturgical iinei

Elia Fafaga e se Agelu, saunia e Ferdinand Bol (c. 1660 - 1663)

 

IN tatalo i lenei taeao, na tautala mai se Leo malu i loʻu fatu:

Pau lava le mea e te alu ai. Naʻo le lava e faʻamalosia ai lou fatu. Na o le lava e piki oe i luga. Naʻo le mea e taofi ai oe mai lou paʻu… Naʻo le lava e te faʻalagolago ai ia te aʻu.

Such is the Hour into which the Church now enters, the Hour when she will be abandoned, hemmed in on every side, and seemingly crushed by the enemy. But it is also the Hour when she will receive lava na from the hands of Angels to keep her on the journey.

It is the Hour when they will feed us with lava na heavenly wisdom to revive the despairing heart and strengthen drooping knees.

Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you! (1 Kings 19:7)

The Hour when we will receive lava na to conquer the desert of temptation.

Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him. (Matt 4:11)

The Hour when our simple fiat and desire, like a meager five loaves and two fish, will be lava na to nourish our neighbour.

Five loaves and two fish are all we have here… they picked up the fragments left over—twelve wicker baskets full. (Matt 14:17, 20)

The Hour when the Bread of Life, “our daily bread”, will be lava na grace for the day.

He gave them bread from heaven to eat. (John 6:31)

The Hour when the fear of Gethsemane will be quenched by lava na consolation.

Ma ina ia faamalosia o ia sa faaali mai ia te ia se agelu mai le lagi. (Luka 22:43)

The Hour when we will be given lava na help to carry our cross to the Summit.

They laid on Simon of Cyrene the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. (Luke 23:26)

Brothers and sisters, this is the Hour when we too shall be stripped of mea uma and left naked before the mocking crowds. But this stripping is essential to prepare us for the glorious Resurrection that follows.^[1]ff. Le Valoaga i Roma As the Catechism states:

All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks… she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. -Catechism o le Ekalesia Katoliko, Le. 1816, 677

Everything in the Church now must appear to come to nothing. The disciples watched this in real-time, as we too must now:

The same Jesus whose apologetics could silence the Pharisees suddenly became silent Himself.^[2]ff. O Le Tali Le leoa The Jesus who could pass through angry mobs now stood condemned before Pilate. The Jesus who raised the dead could now barely pick Himself up to carry His Cross. The Jesus whose hands healed the sick were now helplessly fastened to the wood. The Jesus whose tongue cast out demons was now soundly mocked by them. And the Jesus who calmed the roaring waves now lay lifeless in a tomb.

All appeared utterly lost.

So too, now, the Church will seem to become all but straw, a confused, messy, mound of impotence. All that will be left at the Cross will be but a remnant, the Mother of God and John, a symbol of the childlike, faithful, and courageous few who will remain. I believe Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) prophetically described this Passion:

O le Ekalesia o le a avea laiti ma o le a amata amata toe sili atu pe itiiti ifo mai le amataga. O le a le toe mafai ona nofo i le tele o maota na fausia e ia i le manuia. A o le aofai o ona tagata o le a faʻaititia… O le a leiloa ia ia le tele o ona tulaga faʻapitoa ... A o se tamaʻi sosaiete, [le Ekalesia] o le a faia sili atu tele manaʻoga i le taumafaiga a ana lava tagata.

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek… The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain… But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

Ma o lea e foliga mautinoa ia te aʻu o le Ekalesia o feagai ma taimi sili ona faigata. O le mea moni faigata ua toeititi amata. E tatau ona tatou faalagolago i lugā mataʻutia. Ae ou te mautinoa foi e uiga i le mea o le a totoe i le iuga: le o le Lotu o le lotu faʻalelotu, lea ua maliu ua ma Gobel, ae o le Ekalesia o le faʻatuatua. Atonu o le a le toe avea o ia ma pule silisili faʻaagafesoʻotaʻi i le tulaga na ia i ai talu ai nei; ae o le a ia fiafia i se fugalaʻau fou ma o le a vaʻaia o se tamaloa fale, lea o le a ia maua ai le ola ma le faʻamoemoe i tua atu o le oti. —Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI), Faʻatuatua ma le Lumanaʻi, Ignatius Press, 2009

You, my dear brothers and sisters, are being called into this “little flock of believers.” But if you are looking to the nostalgia of yesterday, the glorious Church of the past, the strength of yore, then you will not find it, for the glory of tomorrow will be as different as the wounds of Christ’s resurrected body were from His crucified flesh.

For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame… (Heb 12:2)

Therefore, follow Jesus on this Way of the Cross where consolations will now be few. But they will be lava na. Aua “whoever serves me must follow me,” Lo matou Aliʻi
fai mai, “and where I am, there also will my servant be.” But He continues, “The Father will honor whoever serves me.”^[3]John 12: 26 That is, the Father will give lava na for us to fulfill His will.

And that “just enough” is Jesus Himself, working too, through the Mother of the Cross.

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,and I will give you rest. (Today’s Gospel)

He gives strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound. Though young men faint and grow weary,and youths stagger and fall, they that hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles’ wings; they will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. (First reading)

Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of health? Are you not happily within the folds of my mantle, held safely in my arms? —Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego, Dec. 12th, 1531

 

 

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E malaga ma Mareko i le le Lenei le Upu lenei Aso Afio mai,
kiliki i luga le fuʻa i lalo e lesitala.
O lau imeli o le a le faʻasoaina i se tasi.