IN A FEW WORDS, Fr. Joaquín Alliende. The Latin word “rapiamur” means a decisive action and is almost violent. Christ is the one who has changed sin into grace. He is the Word of the creative Trinity. And we, together with all of creation, are creatures. We share a common task with creation: to make the Invisible visible, to attract the finite to the Infinite. In the Christmas liturgy, the preface speaks about ‘changing’ earth into heaven, using the Latin word “rapiamur.” The sound of these three syllables sound like “rapiña” in Spanish, a bird of prey (eagle, condor). In the military sense, the text would read: the victors “violently captured their bounty.” We could translate the Christmas text as: “The Word became flesh so that, to know it visibly, He captures us as his bounty towards the love of the Invisible.” Concretely, Mary’s small, tangible and smiling Son in Bethlehem, captures us for heaven. We are his bounty. He took us, almost by force, to place us in the tender hand of the Father and the kiss of the Holy Spirit.
Our father and founder, Joseph Kentenich, pedagogically and inspirationally formulated the relationship between earth and heaven. He said that earth is a replica of heaven, which reveals or speaks to us because it is the “expression” of heaven. In the same way as creation returns us to the origin, it becomes the way of “return.” On the other hand, by dearly loving the visible, we avoid transforming the Invisible into something that is ethereal and distant, impersonal, vague, tepid. (This is what Deism consists of: God exists but is not apathetic or absent). The earthly visible “assures” us so that we can existentially love the Trinity and His children who are already “enjoying” eternity.
Each earthly celebration of our Jubilee is an expression-path-assurance of the joyful heavenly liturgy. Each colour, every shape, the songs, the fires and the foods and the handshakes, are a practical and poetic expression of the Schoenstatt mystery. All this “captures” our heart. In order to do this, we will celebrate 18.10.2014 with festive intimacy, with praise and urgency for the mission. We are already calling on the Trinity and the MTA to captivate us, to enchant us, to capture us, with gentle violence. In this way, the Jubilee will convert us, also painfully, with deeper faithfulness and sanctity.
Fr. Joaquin Alliende L.
Original: Spanish – Translation: Sarah-Leah Pimentel, South Africa
