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Sunday, July 16th, 2006
Mother Elvira’s Farewell
The welcome that we want to extend each other is this: let’s all listen to the profound longing to love that each of us carries in our hearts. Let’s remember that we hurt ourselves when we wait for others to love us, or we wait for them to ask  us for forgiveness, when we expect the others to take the first step, or to serve us better…This is not love, above all it is an absurd expectation, because genuine love is freely given without expecting anything in return.
So we began by talking about our longing, our need to love, and then surely we, too, will be loved, for sure, because the Lord is never outdone in generosity. This is what love is: it is to give… things, but above all, to give ourselves. So it’s not just to give money to beggars—that’s too easy! It’s to give your total being freely, expecting nothing in return.
The world needs love. Today’s youth need love, and we can give it with a smile, starting with the little things. So now, a great big hug and “thank you” with all my heart to all of you who have seriously tried in these four days to grow in their faith, so that it will not be a sleeping faith, but a dynamic faith that takes action, suffers, serves, and gives its life completely. Let’s not even keep one hair for ourselves because that one hair becomes a rope that binds you. When the Lord says to us, “Everything” it means “Everything!” “If you don’t lose your life,” from your head down to your feet…and so when we have the opportunity to choose the good, let’s do it! We really can do it! We are inspired by the instinct to love that God has placed within our being, so let’s not betray our lives. Faith means to give your life. Faith is to believe in amazement that God works inside of us when we are able to love and forgive. And so faith is also seeing, and all of you in these days have seen, not just heard or felt, but you have seen faith developing and growing with your own eyes, that faith which is people who are truly alive, people who change, decide to forgive others, to forgive themselves, and to love.
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