DAILY MEDITATION: “You must be born from above”

Liturgical day: Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter

Gospel text (Jn 3,7-15): Jesus said to Nicodemus: “‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can this happen?” Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

“You must be born from above”

Fr. Xavier SOBREVÍA i Vidal
(Sant Just Desvern, Barcelona, Spain)

Today, Jesus talks about the difficulty of foreseeing and knowing the action of the Holy Spirit: in fact, it “blows where it wills” (Jn 3, 8). He ties it in with the testimony He is also giving and the need to be born from above. “You must be born from above.” (Jn 3, 7), clearly says the Lord; a new life is necessary to have access to eternal life. It is not enough to "get by" to reach the Kingdom of Heaven; a new life, regenerated by the Spirit's action, is needed. Our professional, family, sporting, cultural, playful and, most than all, pious life, must be transformed by our Christian feeling and by God's action. Everything must be transversely impregnated by his Spirit. Nothing, but nothing at all, should make us stay outside the renewal God's Spirit, offers us.

A transformation where Jesus Christ is the catalyst. He, who previously had to suffer the Crucifixion and then resurrect, is who will send us God's Spirit. He who has come from above. He who has shown his power and his goodness, through his many miracles. He who always makes his Father's will. He who has suffered to the last drop of blood for us. Thanks to the Spirit He will send us, we “shall be able to ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven; by the Spirit we obtain his filial adoption; by the Spirit we are allowed to call God our ‘Father’, to participate of Christ's Grace and to receive the right to share the eternal glory” (Saint Basil the Great).

Let us give the Spirit's action our warmest welcome, let us listen to him and let us apply his inspirations so that each one of us —wherever we should be— can set up a good and noble example that inflames Christ's light.

Source: evangeli.net