CHRISTMAS AND THE END OF YEAR 2009
It is sort of strange to see how God can transform us and how our lives can turn completely unrecognizable when we see it with the eyes of the Lord as opposed as to the vision we had in our old self away from God, when we used to see life only with the eyes of self.
Coming back to the mother house of the Pilgrim’s mission in Bogotá, Colombia every Christmas, is an ever growing, always new, always deeper in the venturing into that infinite Ocean of God , and observing how drastically and abundantly is the experience of living within God, how much it does change us turning us into whole new human beings.
For us Pilgrim’s in Colombia, Christmas is the highest point of the year. We are hundred per cent focus on Divine Infancy. Our whole spirituality and our guiding missionary life come from the Divine Infant. So Christmas is something really big in our mission. Every year the Baby Jesus makes sure that we know how much He loves us, and how much He supports the mission He has entrusted us with around the whole world.
This past year 2009 was one of constant traveling around the world and perhaps better to say: one of non stop traveling, no much different than the last 10 years of missions, but always an increasing pace that pushes my whole self into an abyss of complete trust in God. Things move so fast, so miraculously fast, that it seems as if there was no time to see through the supernatural veil to calculate the movement of God’s hands in every step of the way. One thing I know for sure without absolutely any doubt: I live a supernatural mission. It may have sound pretentious for me to mention it a few years back, but today I testify it as a fact, it is a testimony by it self. I visited so far 90 countries around the five Continents and I live completely in faith. I never call any one to invite me to mission any were within the past ten years and I do not have time to get to where I’m being invited to go. I have a health condition that naturally would not allow me to live such pace of life, but I do live such life and my health responds perfectly though I live in a mended heart and a few other ailments. Those are some of the reasons why I celebrate Christmas highly to glorify the Lord in His Divine Manger of Bethlehem, I make sure it is the biggest celebration; it begins on the 16th of December with the Divine Infant’s Christmas novena which goes until the 24th at midnight mass. Every night we have the Eucharist, a concert of Christmas carols and a talk by me on Divine Infancy, it last about three hours every night and many come. On the first weekend of the novena I put together a retreat in an auditorium for about 1.200 people. Those are two days of talks and music. The 24th this year we were about 60 pilgrims, among us whole families with children, we had the midnight mass, the concert and dinner, we were together until 4:00 a.m. and had the most anointed and spiritual Christmas ever. Every year is bigger and bigger and more and more important for every one of us. One can see the children becoming more and more aware of what they are into. We feel a powerful mantle over us, the Divine Royal mantle of our Baby King Jesus. We want the whole world to be with us and some how we make it happen because our prayers go out to the whole of humanity.
On the 31st we have an all night Blessed Sacrament vigil. This year all of us stayed completely silent at midnight while we heard the noise of every one in the streets celebrating the New Year, many of them exercising pagan and superstitious customs , many others drunk and rowdy and others running every where. It was powerful the silence we lived, we didn’t move, we praised the Lord and thanked Him and asked him to accept our silence in reparation for all of the irreverence to Him during the New Year’s celebrations of many. The priest that was to come back and celebrate Mass at 6:00 a.m. was late and didn’t show up until 8:30 a.m., so the Mass and the end of the Adoration took about two hours during which we all paid highly trying not to fall sleep. We made it and by the time every thing was over we were all wide awake as if we had slept all night.
It is wonderful to live life with Jesus in the missions, to turn our whole life into a mission with Jesus.
May Jesus reign in our lives as the main mission. May our mission in our lives be Jesus.
Happy New year to you all!
Marino Restrepo, Pilgrims of love, Bogotá, Colombia.