In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Monday 10 August 2020

Saint Lawrence, deacon and martyr

Word for today
The Gospel of John 12:24-26

What good is it?

Why do I have to die, asks the seed of the blade of grass. Why do I have to die, asks the blade of grass to the sheaf of wheat. Why do I have to die, asks the sheaf of wheat of the grain. Why do we have to die, ask the grain of the flour. Why do I have to die, asks the flour of the bread. Why do I have to die, asks the bread of the mouth. The answer is that what does not die is not transformed, and what is not transformed does not become what it already is in its very essence and thus bears no fruit. Instead it remains isolated, separated from the One. Death is not the core of this evolution, it is only the symbolic end representing the mechanism  that is necessary - on this earth - of letting a part go in order to serve life and to become a part of the whole. The heart of this extraordinary process is vibration. The energy of life vibrates in every living being and reality of creation in a particular way which determines its shape, its size, and its functioning. All and everything is vibration. If the seed is afraid of losing its vibration, if it remains stubbornly concentrated on its vibration and wants to keep its vibration as a seed, it will never become a blade of grass, it will never move closer to its essence, it will not serve the All, it will not move towards the One. Instead, it will remain isolated, alone, and it will bear no fruit. This mechanism enables the caterpillar to abandon its form in order to spread its wings as a butterfly, it enables the glacier to melt and disappear into the stream, the stream to flow into the river and the river into the sea. This is how everything glorifies God.
In this way, from one vibration to another, if every living being and reality lets itself go, if in some way it cedes its own vibration to serve the whole, it will bear much fruit, it will become very useful, and will move in the direction of the One; the One does not cease to honor this dying, restoring harmony to everything and  to each thing.
In this process, Life Supreme, God, the Heavenly Father, from one vibration to another, is turning everything into Himself, into unity and harmony. Retaining, possessing, not letting go is certainly the most effective and sure way of not being useful to anyone, of not bearing fruit, and of being alone and sad, distant from the One, without harmony.
Jesus expresses all this simply and straightforwardly. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.