Jesus is now twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. He is a ripe wheat field, an apple tree laden with golden fruit. Any sensitive observer could notice a different glimmer in him, as if the Father’s radiance enveloped him with a serene maturity, transforming him into a brimming abyss, into a well of peace.
But the growth of Jesus in his divine experiences did not end here. With his great sensitivity, the Poor One went deeper—with increasing frequency and greater depth—into solitary encounters with the Father, generally at night, and almost always in the hills and slopes that surround Nazareth. He sailed with full sails across the high seas of tenderness; his confidence toward his Father lost its boundaries and restraints; he advanced further and further, ever beyond, toward the total depth of Love. And so, one night, at the height of bliss, a word emerged from his mouth that was shocking and incredible to the theology and public opinion of Israel: the word Abba (Oh, my dear Papa!). In this way, we have touched the highest summit of the religious experience of all time.
And now, yes. Now Jesus is in a position to launch himself onto the roads, squares, and markets to communicate and proclaim a substantial novelty, a splendid piece of breaking news—a news item personally intuited and “discovered,” and copiously proven during the silent years of his youth: that the Almighty is loving; that the Hand that sustains the worlds carries my name engraved as a sign of predilection; that by night He watches over my sleep, and during the day He follows my steps like a watchful shadow; and that, above all, this Love is gratuitous. He loves me without a “why” and without a “what for”; neither because I am good nor so that I may be good: like the rose that, by being a rose, gives fragrance; like the light that, by being light, illuminates. Thus, Love, by being love, simply and without motive, loves.
This novelty will condition the trajectory and the strong lines of the Gospel message: universal fraternity, the option for the poor, the commandment of love… The long night has ended. Day breaks.
Taken from the book “The Poor One of Nazareth,” Chapter I, section “Toward the Vertex of Love” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
