Wednesday, March 28, 2012

PASSION SUNDAY – PALM SUNDAY 2012

*      On Palm Sunday we will begin Holy Week, the most solemn week in our Church. In the liturgies of this week we will remember the greatest  events of our salvation.   

*      Jesus as he prepares to depart from us, leaves with us his sacramental presence in his Body (bread) and his Blood (wine).  

*      Jesus gives to us his priests who will   make him present among us.   

*      Jesus leaves with us also his new commandment, the commandment of love: LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.    

*      Jesus gives his life for all of us as well as for each one of us, he offers his salvation to us, he gives us again the opportunity to enter into the intimacy with our Father, God and Creator.   

FIRST READING – Isaiah 50: 4-7   

«  The first Reading is taken from the Second book of Isaiah called the Deutero-Isaiah, or Second Isaiah, or Book of the Consolation.  

«  In this book we find 4 poems called the Poems of the Servant of Yhwh.  This servant is a mysterious character that has been identified with the people of Israel, with a prophet, with Jeremiah. It is a individual character, but also a collective character.   

«  On Palm Sunday we read the third poem, in which the author describes the  servant as a prophet, someone called to be at the service of the word.   

o   The servant speaks and says that he has been given the tongue of a disciple.  

o   Each morning, as a disciple he listens to know what he has to say  

o   And thus he will be able to say a word of comfort to the one who is discouraged   

o   He continues to speak and says that he has not offered resistance when his ear was opened. Why should he offer resistance, is that something dangerous?  

o   The next verse gives us a clue to understand what the servant wants to tell us  

o   It seems that to listen to the word and afterwards to repeat this word  brings upon him humiliation, mistreatments, offenses; but he says that he does not offer resistance.  

o   Because the one who helps him is the Lord. The Lord Yhwh has called him, and has given him a face hard as stone to be able to face all the humiliations, that come to him, because of the word heard and repeated.

o   Looking at the other two readings of this Sunday we realize that this Servant is Jesus.  

RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps  22:8-9. 17-18. 19-20. 23-24

The response will be MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME? 

ü  The response is taken from the first verse of this psalm. 

ü  Jesus will say these words on the cross  

ü  Jesus makes his these words pronounced by the psalmist, and by all those who have felt themselves abandoned by God. 

ü  We must be grateful to our Lord to be solidary with us, with each and every man and woman who has experienced that God is far from him or her, that it does not seem that he listen to us.

ü  Jesus has reached the deepest level of suffering.

SECOND READING -  Phil  2:6-11

This Reading has two parts: the humiliation and the exaltation of Jesus Christ.   

HUMILIATION

What is that attitude of Christ we are invited to make ours? 

Ø  Being God he did not regard equality with God something to be grasped at. 

Ø  We know that he became like us in the incarnation. 

Ø  He humiliated himself and became a slave   

Ø  Those who saw him, knew that he was a man   

Ø  In obedience he accepted to die on the cross.  

Ø  God, the Son of God, the Word, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity has become one of us to teach us how to be human, to obey.   

o   To obey is the fundamental attitude of the human being, man and woman created by God. The creature is called to be by the Creator  

o   The creature listens and answers to the call “to be.” This is what obedience means, to do what another person says.  

Ø  From the cross Jesus teaches us the greatest  lesson which we need to learn: to surrender our being, to abandon us in the hands of the Father, in the hands of others, without offering resistance, as we have read in the poem of the servant.   

EXALTATION

Ø  Because being God he wanted to live like us, and to surrender himself into our hands 

Ø  God the Father has given him a name over any other name  

Ø  He has the same name as God, at his name all creation bends its knees and proclaims that 

Ø  JESUS CHRIST IS LORD for the Glory of God the Father. 

Ø  Jesus, as the servant from the first Reading, has been faithful, knowing that the Father is his help. He trusted in the Father to the end, he surrenders himself to the one who loves him unconditionally.   

Ø  After his resurrection the first communities said of Jesus the same words that Israel said of Yhwh. They  say JESUS IS LORD, which means JESUS IS GOD.  

GOSPEL  – READING OF THE PASSION ACCORDING TO SAINT MARK 14:32-15,47

We will read the Passion as Mark narrates it 

§  We read the Passion according to Mark in the same year in which we read the gospel of Mark on the Sundays in Ordinary time.  

§  From the beginning of his Gospel Mark prepares us to understand the deep meaning of the Passion of Jesus and how it is connected to his ministry.  

§  During his ministry Jesus will have confrontations with the leaders of his people.  He will experience a growing opposition until they will plan to eliminate him.   

§  Mark describes the passion of Jesus in its greatest cruelty, making us enter into the darkness experienced  by Jesus: his fear, his abandonment, his loneliness, his physical and moral sufferings

§  Mark is the evangelist who has presented in the strongest way the humanity of Jesus. 

§  Let us enter into the Passion taking out  our sandals, as God asked Moses, because we  will stand on   holy ground, the intimacy of our dear Redeemer.   

§  The four evangelists narrate with a luxury of details  the passion of our Lord. The passion according to Mark has   4 parts: 

-          GETHEMANE: PRAYER AND ARREST  (14,26-52)

-          THE JEWISH TRAIL/ PETER’S DENAIL   (14,53-72)

-          THE ROMAN TRAIL   (15,1-20)

-          CRUCIFIXION, DEATH AND BURIAL (15,21-47) 

§  GETHSEMANE: PRAYER AND ARREST

o    Jesus is alone, and he will be alone until the end of his journey, all will abandon him. 

o    Jesus looks for the sympathy of his friends, like all of us when we suffer.  

o   He leaves the larger group of his apostles at the entrance of the garden, and goes further with his three friends Peter, James and John. These three had been witnesses of the resurrection of Jairo’s  daugther,  and of the transfiguration.  

o   He humbly says that he is sad even to death. 

o   He prays to the Father his Abba, everything is possible for you… if it is possible…. But may your will be done.  He repeats this prayer three times.  

o   Each time he goes to his disciples, and finds them sleeping because of the sadness. Jesus seems to dislike that Peter has not been able to be awaken with him. Peter will not do anything, like the others. The only thing he will do is not precisely something that Jesus had taught him, to cut off the ear of one of the servants of the high priest.  

o   When Jesus finishes his prayer he is serene again, at peace, ready to face what may come. 

o   When Judas comes and kisses him, Jesus does not say anything. At that moment  all abandon him.  

o   Scriptures have to be fulfilled, it means the will of the Father, which he had already let the prophets foresee, is now being fulfilled. 

§  JEWHISH TRIAL/PETER’S DENIAL

o   Mark presents a great contrast between Jesus actions, and the actions of his disciple, the one who will be the head of his church. The one who once confessed that Jesus is the Messiah. 

o   Jesus is interrogated by the Sanhedrin, the political and religious authority of Israel. The Romans had given them some functions of authority that they could perform.  Peter is interrogated by the   servant girl and others outside in the courtyard around the fire.  

§  The main accusation against Jesus is that he had said something wrong about the Temple: that if destroyed, he will rebuild it in three days.   

§  The Temple is the most sacred reality in Israel, it is the symbol of the presence of Yahweh in the midst  of his people

§  Since the accusers did not agree among them, the high priest asked Jesus solemnly if he is the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One. The high priest has the authority received from God thus Jesus obeys him even if the high priest abuses from his authority. Jesus also cannot deny his identity, which the Father repeated to him twice “You are my son, my beloved.”   

§  Jesus who had not speak when they accused him, will speak now, he cannot remain silent. 

§  Jesus like the Servant of the First reading cannot keep for himself what he has heard from the Father, his  deepest identity, and responds I AM. He also adds that they will see the son of man coming in the clouds. The Son of Man  has authority to judge.    

§  He will be condemned because he has said the truth. He will also be mocked. 

o   Let us go back to Peter, and see what he is doing while Jesus is saying the truth for our salvation.   

§  For three times he is questioned about his identity, his being a disciple of that man from Galilee. His three answers are every time farther away from the truth.  

·        I do not understand what you are saying.   

·        The second time he denies again to be a disciple. 

·        The third time he curses and swears that he has never known that man. 

§  The cock crowed for the second time, Peter remembers the words of Jesus and weeps.  

§  Thank you Lord for having chosen Peter, such a weak man, to represent you among us, to be the leader of your church. 

§  Thank you because we are very weak also, but looking at Peter we may learn to weep. 

§  ROMAN TRAIL

o   In the morning the Sanhedrin handed over Jesus to Pilate, the Roman Governor.

o   The accusation here is not that he made himself son of God, but that he made himself King. Pilate could not accept that because this was against the Roman Emperor.  

o   Pilate speaks to Jesus, he asks Jesus, but Jesus does not answer him, and Pilate is amazed. Jesus speaks when necessary but not now, because Pilate is not interested in hearing the truth.  

o   Pilate realizes that they handed him over to him out of envy, but Pilate is a coward and does not dare to give a just sentence, he tries to please and to keep his position of Governor. So he will try to find  another way. To liberate Jesus and hand over to them Barabbas a thief and a murderer.   

o   Pilate is amazed to see that they prefer Barabbas to Jesus. They preferred their own selfishness instead of choosing life.  Humankind today is not so different from that crowd which wanted the death of Jesus. We also prefer our selfishness of all sorts over to the truth and to life. We prefer:  

§  All our addictions which kill us little by little  

§  Our selfishness that kills us and kills others: abortions, euthanasia, pornography, all sorts of new slaveries, abuses of women and children, unfaithfulness in marriage….  

§  We scorn, make fun of people that suffer different kinds of limitations. Those we  deep   call  not “normal” as we say we are.   

§  We may continue the list on an on, each one of us can do it looking at the prejudices we nurture in our heart.  

o   Jesus is condemned to death, the most shameful death that the Roman Empire inflicted on the criminals and slaves, on those they considered less than human beings.   

§  CRUCIFIXION, DEATH AND BURIAL  

o   Mark is the only one that presents to us Simon of Cyrene. The soldiers make him carry the cross of Jesus. Jesus is so weak that they think he will not make it to the Golgotha,  where they want to crucify him.  

o   We do not know anything about that man .

§  But we may imagine as it is presented to us in the movie The Passion, that this man did not remain indifferent in this close contact with Jesus, that innocent man condemned to die.   

§  To be near Jesus had to change him, as we have changed since the day we encounter our Lord in the journey of our life.    

o   Pilate put the inscription on the cross JESUS KING OF THE JEWS, probably to shame the people of Israel, look what King  you have. Without  knowing it,  he said the truth. He is the KING OF THE JEWS, AND HE IS THE KING OF EVERYONE, AND OF THE UNIVERSE. 

o   The people around the cross insult Jesus, but Jesus with a loud voice says MY GOD, MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONNED ME? This is the first sentence of Psalm 22 which Jesus makes his in this hour of darkness; Jesus feels the abandonment from all and from the Father.    He does not call him as usual Abba, now in his great suffering he does not feel him as Abba, but not even as a friendly God.

o   Thank you Lord because this is the experience of so many innocent people who suffer injustice and are abandoned by their friends and loved ones. 

o   Jesus dies giving a loud cry.   Let us read Joel 2:10-22; 4, 16 to understand what Mark describes.

o   Creation feels very deeply the death of its Creator, the Temple is not necessary anymore, Jesus is the true Temple of God,

o   The way in which Jesus dies helps the Roman Centurion discover the identity of Jesus. “Truly this man was the son of God. “

o   The women who are present look at what is happening, but they cannot get close to the cross.   

o   Joseph of Arimathea, a rich and distinguished man asks Pilate the body of Jesus. Pilate gives it to him. 

o   He took him down from the cross and buried him in a tomb. 

o   Two women look attentively to see where they put him. 

o   And the body of Jesus is in the tomb waiting for the resurrection.

Blessed be your power and kindness!  
Blessed be the Lord! 
O!  love of God toward your creatures! 
O!  Word that does whatever it says! 
O!  Lord may your will be done. 
How true it is that no one can make resistance
to the will of God!  
Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the  
Claretian Missionary Sisters

Blessed may you be, O Lord, for your love and mercy toward me. 
Grant me to love and serve you, and help me to make all creatures  to love and serve  you.   
Fire that always burns and never becomes extinguished.
Love of God grant that I may love you.
I love you Jesus with all my heart.
Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the  
Claretian Missionary Sisters

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BROWN, Raymond E. A Crucified Christ in Holy Week (Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives). Collegeville, Minnesota, 1986.

CLARET, Antonio María. Prayers found in his writings   

GOMEZ, Margarita rmi.  Notes on the Deutero-Isaiah.   .

PARIS, María Antonia. Prayers found in her writings. 

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso. Commentaries on the BIBLIA DE NUESTRO PUEBLO (BIBLE OF OUR PEOPLE). Ediciones Mensajero. China 2010.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT – 2012

We have reached the last Sunday of Lent, next Sunday will be the beginning of another phase in our journey toward Easter: Holy Week. 
Let us briefly review our Lenten journey: 

*      We began contemplating Jesus tempted in the desert, after being baptized in the Jordan River, and having heard the voice of the Father: You are my beloved Son…  

*      We marveled with the disciples witnesses of the Transfiguration of the Lord. On the Mountain we learned again that  the Beloved Son, who has been tempted in the desert, is God incarnate who allows us to see his glory, and again the Father repeats to us the same words He pronounced at Jesus’ baptism, but he adds “Listen to Him.”  

*      Then in the three following Sundays the liturgy has put in front of our eyes for our contemplation different themes related to the Paschal Mystery of Jesus:

o   Jesus cleanses the Temple of his Father, and says that he (Jesus) is the true Temple, the true Law.  (Third Sunday)

o   Jesus has to be lifted up as the serpent in the desert, so that whoever looks at Him in faith will be saved. (Fourth Sunday)  

o   Jesus, the grain of wheat that falls to the earth and dies to give life, invites us to do the same. (Fifth Sunday)    

FIRST READING  – Jeremiah  31:31-34
Ø  Jeremiah is the prophet who witnessed the fall of Jerusalem into the power of the Babylonian Empire on   586 B.C.

Ø  This Reading is taken from the part of his book called “the book of consolations” chapters 30 and 31. It is considered the high point of the Old Testament spirituality. 

Ø  Jeremiah presents in a daring way the substitution of the Covenant on Mount Sinai by a “New Covenant”.  

Ø  The accent is on the word “new”, on the newness that this covenant, which is almost here, will bring to the people. 

Ø  Jesus makes real this promise, and at the Last Supper   when he consecrates the wine into his blood, Jesus says that this is the New and eternal Covenant…   made in his blood.

Ø  What is the newness of this Covenant? 

o   First of all it is new, it is not the old covenant with some small transformation, no, it is completely new.  

o   God says that He will make a new covenant with the House of Israel. The Church is called the New Israel which is formed by all who accept the Lord, who look at him with faith to be saved.  

o   This covenant will not be as the one made by God when He took “your fathers” and brought them from slavery to freedom.   

o   The law will not be written on cold and hard stone tablets as the First Covenant on Mount Sinai.  

In that covenant God repeated over and over “you will be my people” and “I will be your God.”    

o   But in  the New Covenant the Law will be written in hearts made of human flesh, in the heart  of every man and woman who look at Christ to be saved. 

o   God will be more than ever “their God” and they will be “his people.”   

o   Something new will happen, each one (small or great, young or old) will know in his or her  inner being the Law, since it will be put by God in their hearts.  

o    This law will become in the human heart as the rivers of living water that Jesus promised to the Samaritan woman.   

o   The Church has seen in these texts of the living water, and of the Law in the heart, the pouring of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, over the Church, and over each one of its members.   

o   All these marvelous things will happen because He will have pardoned their sin. Jesus will do this, by offering his life on the cross for the glory of the Father, and our salvation.  Both things are the same.  

In the RESPONSORIAL PSALM, we will ask our God CREATE A CLEAN HEART IN ME O, GOD, where you will be able to write your New Law, your New Covenant.   

SECOND READING  – Hebrews  5:7-9

«  The author  of the Letter to the Hebrews presents to us in this chapter the priesthood of Jesus. 

«  Every priest is formed in prayer where love warms his heart, and helps him to get closer to God. 

«  In this process man learns obedience, to help us to become what God has dreamed for each one when he created us.  

«  Jesus, the Word of God, the Incarnate Son of God, who partakes of our limited human nature, in prayer, in the process of the events of life, has learned to obey. The letter says: “He learned obedience from what he suffered…” 

«  Once perfected, consecrated in obedience, in suffering,  and in the offering of his life 

He will become the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him, who look at him to be saved. 

«  The author sees in this whole process of the priesthood of Christ, a new priesthood that is able to give salvation ,to all those who adhere to him; and He is able to take them to God. 

«  A “New” Covenant requires a “New” Priesthood.  

GOSPEL-  John  12:20-33

ü  John presents to us a group of Greeks. As it is customary in the Gospel of John, the characters he presents are the symbol of different groups of people.  

ü  Here we have a group of Greeks who do not belong to the people of Israel. 

ü  They approach Philip and make this wonderful request WE WANT TO SEE JESUS. 

ü  When Philip and Andrew say this to Jesus, He says words, which might seem do not answer the request, but Jesus is giving the meaning of the whole situation: some gentiles want to see Him, let us remember that whoever looked at the bronze serpent in the desert were cured, whoever looks at Jesus on the cross with faith is saved.   

ü  The hour has come, what hour? The hour that Jesus refers to several times in the Gospel of John.  

o   It is not a chronological hour, it the hour “kayros” the time of salvation. 

o   It is the hour of the glorification of the Son. What glorification?  His death and resurrection, his Passover, his Paschal Mystery. 

ü  Like the grain of wheat, He has to die in order to give life.  

o   All of us, if we want to give life, we have to die like the grain of wheat, like Jesus. 

o   Jesus invites us to serve him, to follow him, because where “I am” my servant will be. 

o   Who serves Him will be honored by the Father. The Father Himself has told us on the Mountain of the Transfiguration, “listen to Him.”  

ü  Jesus discovers to us his inner being, his feelings, “ He is troubled now.   

o   Jesus is ready to do the will of the Father, He had told us that this is his food, but human as He is, he experiences the fear of suffering, humiliation and death. 

o   How much we have to be thankful to Jesus to have opened his heart, and allowed us to know that He experienced fear in front of suffering, abandonment, rejection, death and witnessing to the love and truth of God. 

o   But John goes on saying that Jesus knows that this is “his hour” 

o   Will he ask the Father to deliver him from it?  

o   No, because he has come for this “hour”, the hour in which in   his flesh He will make the “New Covenant” real for the salvation of all. 

o   Jesus asks the Father to glorify Him and in so doing glorify his name of Father  

o   He  responds to Jesus, He speaks to him like in his Baptism and in the Transfiguration, and says “I have glorified it already and will glorify it again.”  (it means his name)  

o   The glory of Jesus, the glory of the Father’s name is found in the obedience of Jesus. His,  is a loving, filial and difficult obedience to the compassionate, and loving will of the Father.  

o   Those present did not understand the meaning of the voice, but Jesus told them that the voice came for them, not for Jesus, but to help them to “see Jesus” not with their bodily eyes, but with the eyes of faith. 

ü  And Jesus declares  solemnly 

o   Now judgment has come upon this world  

o   Now the prince of this world, the spirit of evil and sin will be driven out, will not have power anymore.   

o   And once “I am lifted up from earth” I will draw all men and women to me. The cross of Christ has always been the point of attraction of Christian  and even non-Christian people.  

o   Jesus makes the “New Covenant” real. This “New Covenant” written in the human heart. His death seals this covenant made in love, and compassion; and thus draws all to it. Only a compassionate love will help us  to abandon sin,  and return to the heart of our Father.     

ü  John ends this passage explaining that “lifted up on the earth” means the kind of death Jesus was going to suffer. 
CYCLE  A
GOSPEL  John 11: 1-45

«  Following what we have said on the previous Sundays, John unifies his characters, each one represents a group of human beings.  

«  Today he presents to us the resurrection of Lazarus as the resurrection of Israel into the New Israel. 

«  The Jews (according to John the Jews mean the part of the people of Israel who do not accept Jesus, sometimes he means also the Jewish authorities) they decide to kill Jesus because he has given life again to a dead man. 

«  For John this will be the cause of the condemnation of Jesus to death, for the Synoptic Gospels it will be that Jesus made himself equal to God. 

«  When Jesus hears that his friend Lazarus is sick he does nothing, he lets Lazarus die. Israel, like Lazarus, is sick and cannot be cured he has to be raised up.  

«  The sentence “the one you love is sick” means also that Israel, the beloved people of God, is sick, to the point of death.  The death of Lazarus will be the occasion of the manifestation of the glory of God, in the same way that the resurrection of Israel into the “New Israel” will make the glory and power of God visible.   

«  Martha, at the beginning of the story represents the theological orientation of the Pharisees; but latter on she opens up to the new faith in Christ.   

«  The conversation of Jesus with Martha is a theological statement on life and resurrection,  and on the identity of Jesus. 

«  Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I believe that God will give to you whatever you ask him – Did I not tell you that your brother will be raised up? – Yes, in the Last day – I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE… AND WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME WILL NEVER DIE. – Do you believe Martha?  YES LORD I HAVE COME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE THE MESSIAH, THE SON OF GOD, THE ONE WHO HAS COME INTO THIS WORLD.   

«  Martha goes and calls Mary who did not move from where she was. The scene here remind us of the Song of Songs, the bride is waiting for the beloved. The relationship of Mary with Jesus is different from the relationship of Martha with Jesus. Mary relates to Jesus from her heart full of love. Her faith is based on the love for the Master…  

«  Mary says the same words of her sister Martha, but they have another meaning, and we know it,  from the way Jesus relates to her. After saying these words  Mary weeps…. 

«  Jesus does not ask from Mary a profession of faith as he asked Martha, would it be because Mary already believed in him? 

«  It is four days since he died. For the Jews 4 days meant that he was truly dead.  

«  Israel is also dead in his faith, but Jesus has the power to bring it to life, because he is the Life. 

«  And Jesus rises up Lazarus, He gives new life to the faithful Israel that, like Martha accepts Him in faith.   

«  The man comes out tied hand and foot. Is that a symbol of the binding of the Old Law? Jesus orders that Lazarus be set free. Jesus keeps doing this continually, setting us free from the bindings that take our freedom away from us, thus  He Himself can be  our only freedom.    

«  A good action may produce different effects on different persons according to their interior disposition: 

o   For some, the resurrection of Lazarus  helps them to believe and to put their faith in Him.   

o   For others it separates them from Jesus, and they decide to kill him. To kill life, the author of life, what a contradiction. How the human heart may close itself to the light, love and life. 

«  Do I believe in the resurrection? Do I believe that Jesus is raised from the dead?  Do I believe that He can raise me up, give me life again, the life of faith in Him, even when I might have lost it? Let us repeat with Martha ‘LORD I HAVE COME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE THE MESSIAH.”     

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
  • CASTRO SÁNCHEZ, Secundino. Evangelio de Juan – Compendio exegético-existencial. Madrid 2002.
  • LOZANO, Juan Manuel. Escritos(Writings) María Antonia París, Estudio crítico, “El Misionero Apostólico- The Apostolic Missionary.”   Barcelona 1985.
  • RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras.  Doble Comentario de las lecturas del domingo. Año B.  San Pablo, Bogotá,Colombia 2005.
  • RUBIO MORÁN, Luis. “Escrito a los Hebreos” en Comentario al Nuevo Testamento. Estella (Navarra) 1995.  
  • VIÑAS, José María cmf y BERMEJO, Jesús, cmf.  Autobiography of Saint Anthony Mary Claret. 

 CLARETIAN CORNER 

For us the Claretian Missionary Sisters today’s first Reading has a very special meaning. We think that this new covenant became a reality in the heart of María Antonia in her Initial Experience, when the Lord engraved in her heart the Law. Let  her explain this experience to us    

I was very attentive, overwhelmed to what was happening, and it seemed to me that I was reading the Holy Law of God, but without seeing any books nor letters; I  was seeing it written, and I was understanding it so very well, that it seemed to me it was imprinting in my soul but in a particular way the book of the Holy Gospels, which till then I had never read, neither  the Sacred Scripture (O.T). After, by God’s grace, I have read something and I have seen it written word by word, as our Lord taught it to me from the holy tree of the cross. It seems to me that the words I understood were coming out from his host holy mouth. Maria Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 5.  
Claret describes the Apostolic Missionary that has been touched by the love of God, and lives according to the New Covenant, the New Law.   

I tell myself: A Son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man on fire with love, who spreads its flames wherever he goes. He desires mightily and strives by all means possible to set the whole world on fire with God's love. Nothing daunts him; he delights in privations, welcomes work, embraces sacrifices, smiles at slander, and rejoices in suffering. His only concern is how he can best follow Jesus Christ and imitate Him in working, suffering, and striving constantly and single-mindedly for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 494.