To be apostles of Christ, we must let him live in us.
“And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him." The Magi were the first Gentiles to adore the Child. They represent all the millions and millions of people throughout the centuries who need to fall down at the Redeemer's feet.
Now that two thousand years have gone by, we look around and see a world which is very distant from God. We could be tempted to pessimism because so much still remains to be done. But we should reject this thought immediately. “Is it because in twenty centuries nothing has been done? In these two thousand years, much work has been done. I don't think it would be fair or objective to discount the accomplishments of those who have gone before us.
“On other occasions there have been mistakes, making the Church lose ground, just as today, there is loss of ground, fear and a timid attitude on the part of some, and at the same time no lack of courage and generosity in others. But, whatever the situation, the human race is being continually renewed. In each generation it is necessary to go on with the effort to help men realize the greatness of their vocation as children of God, to teach them to carry out the commandment of love for God and neighbor."
“Christ has taught us in a definitive way how to make this love for God real. Apostolate is love for God that overflows and communicates itself to others. The interior life implies a growth in union with Christ, in the bread and in the word. And apostolate is the precise and necessary outward manifestation of interior life. When one tastes the love of God, one feels burdened with the weight of souls. There is no way to separate interior life from apostolate, just as there is no way to separate Christ, the God-man, from his role as Redeemer."
For a Christian, apostolate is something instinctive. It is not something added onto his daily activities and his professional work from the outside. … We have to sanctify our ordinary work, we have to sanctify others through the exercise of the particular profession that is proper to each of us, in our own particular state in life.
It is we Christians who obstruct Jesus' redemptive plans, because at times we don't act as he hopes we will. So, on this great feast, let us carefully contemplate the Epiphany scene and learn from those wise men from the East, who humbly kneel before the Child in Bethlehem.
You can tell him: "Lord, take away my pride; crush my self-love, my desire to affirm myself and impose myself on others. Make the foundation of my personality my identification with you."
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