This Sunday’s Gospel Reading (cf. Mt 13:44-52) consists of the final verses of the chapter Matthew devotes to the parable of the Kingdom of Heaven. The passage includes three parables that are very briefly outlined: that of the hidden treasure, that of the precious pearl, and that of the net cast into the sea.

I will look at the first two in which the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to two different “precious” items, namely, the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great value. The reaction of the one who finds the pearl or the treasure is practically the same: the man and the merchant sell everything to buy what is now most dear to them. With these two similes, Jesus proposes to involve us in the building of the Kingdom of Heaven, presenting an essential characteristic of Christian life, of the life of the Kingdom of heaven: those who fully pledge themselves to the Kingdom are those who are willing to stake everything, who are courageous. Indeed, both the man and the merchant in the two parables sell everything they have, thus renouncing their material security. From this it can be understood that the building of the Kingdom requires not only the grace of God, but also the active willingness of humanity. Everything is done by grace, everything! We need only have the willingness to receive it, not to resist grace: grace does everything but it takes ‘my’ responsibility, ‘my’ willingness.

The gestures of that man and the merchant who go searching, depriving themselves of their goods in order to buy more precious treasures, are decisive gestures; they are radical gestures; I would say that they are only ‘one way’ gestures, not a ‘round trip’: they are ‘one way’ gestures. Moreover, they are made with joy because both of them have found a treasure. We are called upon to assume the attitude of these two Gospel figures, so that we too may become healthily restless seekers of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a matter of abandoning the heavy burden of our worldly certainties that prevent us from seeking and building up the Kingdom: the desire for possession, the thirst for profit and power, and thinking only about ourselves.

In our times, as we are all aware, the lives of some people can end up mediocre and dull because they probably do not go in search of a true treasure: they are content with attractive but fleeting things, glittering flashes that prove illusory as they give way to darkness. Instead the light of the Kingdom is not like fireworks, it is light: fireworks last only an instant, whereas the light of the Kingdom accompanies us all our life.

The Kingdom of Heaven is the opposite of the superfluous things that the world offers; it is the opposite of a dull life: it is a treasure that renews life every day and leads it to expand towards wider horizons. Indeed, those who have found this treasure have a creative and inquisitive heart, which does not repeat but rather invents, tracing and setting out on new paths which lead us to love God, to love others, and to truly love ourselves. The sign of those who walk this path of the Kingdom is creativity, always seeking more. And creativity is what takes life and gives life, and gives, and gives, and gives... It always looks for many different ways to give life.

Jesus, who is the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value, cannot but inspire joy, all the joy of the world: the joy of discovering a meaning for one’s life, the joy of feeling committed to the adventure of holiness.

May the Blessed Virgin help us to search every day for the treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven, so that the love God has given us through Jesus may be manifested in our words and gestures.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 26 July 2020].

"Every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who takes out of his treasure new things and old things" (Mt 13:52)

With this significant image Jesus includes - in the order of Chapter 13 of St Matthew - an important series of parables about the kingdom of heaven. The intention of the Master of Galilee is to make it clear that he did not come to "make a tabula rasa" of the religion, eras, culture, traditions and memory of the Jewish faith. Certainly, his kerygmatic proclamation inaugurated a new era for the faith and for all humanity. It was not, however, an ahistorical destructive deconstruction; on the contrary, it meant an inclusive construction of all social, anthropological and religious times and spaces.

In a similar vein, Pope Francis warns us of the dangers in our day of this tendency: 'For this same reason, a loss of the sense of history is also fostered, causing further disintegration. One senses the cultural penetration of a kind of 'deconstructionism', whereby human freedom claims to build everything from scratch. All that remains is the need to consume without limits and the accentuation of many forms of individualism without content" (Fratelli tutti, n. 13).The image of the "father or head of the family" that Jesus outlines in his teaching is very significant. The image of pater familias who knows how to wisely interpret the historical kairos he is living is very welcoming from many points of view, including the generational one. Drawing on the treasure chest of treasures, both new and ancient, he shows the imagination of his listeners the imprint of the kingdom of heaven, where there are neither excluded nor discarded. They are all treasures for the God of this new kingdom!

On several occasions, Jesus took care to teach, with his pedagogy of simplicity and the depth of the everyday scene, that the generational extremes, instead of being discarded, should be seen as examples to treasure.

This vision brings us closer again to some fundamental concepts expressed by Pope Francis in his encyclical Brothers All, such as, for example: 'The lack of children, which causes an ageing population, together with the abandonment of the elderly to painful loneliness, implicitly affirms that everything ends with us, that only our individual interests count' (no. 19).

Jesus publicly offers a vision of children, and of children in the concept of the human family, with a very strong inclusive content for his disciples and all present. In the social scale of those times, children occupied a forgotten and marginal place, especially if they were the children of poor families or foreigners: "Then children were brought to him to lay hands on them and to pray; but the disciples scolded them. But Jesus said to them, 'Let the children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And having laid his hands on them, he departed" (Mt 19:13-15). The disciples act in line with those cultural and social mandates of rejection. Jesus shows them a new path not only of fraternal inclusion but also of referentiality of children, with their treasures of purity in the social economy of his kingdom. The new treasures needed for human fraternity!

The same happens with the elderly. Jesus pauses in front of the place of offerings, often used as a public setting to demonstrate economic power, the supremacy of castes and social elites, all masquerading as religion. In the Gospel account we read: "And he sat in front of the treasury and observed how the crowd threw coins into the treasury. And many rich people were throwing many. But when a poor widow came she threw in two pennies, that is, a penny. Then he called his disciples to him and said to them, 'Truly I tell you, this widow has thrown more into the treasury than all the others. For all have given of their surplus, but she in her poverty has put in all that she had, all that she had to live on'" (Mk 12:41-44). Once again, the inclusive and referential treasure of the poor, elderly woman showed that other parameters such as human fraternity were needed in his counter-culture of the kingdom. Jesus, in highlighting the fact that the elderly woman was giving all she had and not the superfluous, offers a clear teaching, exemplifying a wisdom that those present need to assimilate. Reflected in it is the indispensable reserve of human old age, which urges us to teach that true treasure consists in giving, in being and not in accumulating, holding back or appearing. Ancient treasures are essential for human fraternity!

The blindness that prevents us today as a human family from perceiving the importance of the exemplariness and wisdom of the elderly is clearly pointed out in the encyclical: "We do not realise that isolating the elderly and abandoning them to the care of others without adequate and caring accompaniment by the family, mutilates and impoverishes the family itself. Moreover, it ends up depriving young people of the necessary contact with their roots and with a wisdom that youth alone cannot attain' (Fratelli tutti, n. 19).

The wise father of Jesus' pedagogy invites us to strive to bring the extremes of human society closer together so that we can treasure the good in them, unite what is divided and recompose our sense of social, religious, human and fraternal belonging. "The arduous task of overcoming what divides us without losing the identity of each one presupposes that a fundamental sense of belonging remains alive in everyone. Indeed, our society succeeds when each person, each social group, feels truly at home. In a family, parents, grandparents, children are at home; no one is excluded' (Fratelli tutti, n. 230).

[Marcelo Figueroa, in L'Osservatore Romano;

https://www.osservatoreromano.va/it/news/2020-11/quo-259/con-tesori-nuovi-e-antichi.html]

The Lord of Life (or the pale sign)

Jn 11:19-27 (1-45)

The event of death is disconcerting, and that of a friend of God in community [Bethany] perhaps accentuates the questions about the meaning of our belief and commit ourselves thoroughly.

Why in the time of greatest need does the Lord let us fall? Why does He seem not to be there (v.21)?

Letting even His dearest friends die, Jesus educates us: it is not His intention to procrastinate biological existence (vv.14-15), nor simply improve it a little.

“Eternal” [in the Gospels, the very Life of the Eternal: Zoe aiònios] is not this form of life [in the Gospels: Bìos - possibly strengthened] but only its times of strong love.

Ultimate World does not interfere with the natural course.

For this reason the Lord does not enter the “village” where others went to console and give condolences.

He wants Mary to leave the house where everyone cries in despair and mourns funeral - as if everything was over.

He intends to get us out of the “small hamlet” where it is believed that the earthly end can be only delayed, until the tomb without a future.

The natural emotion for detachment does not hold back tears, which spontaneously «flow from the eyes, sliding down» [dakryein-edakrysen].

Intimate upheaval does not produce a broken and screamed cry [klaiein] as the inconsolable one of the Jews (vv.33.35).

No farewell. For this reason, it follows the order to remove the stone that at that time closed the tombs (v.39).

The strong Call is absolutely imperative: the ‘deceased’ ones are not ‘dead’ ones, as ancient religions believed; their lives goes on.

«Lazarus, out here!» (v.43): it is the cry of the victory of life. 

In the adventure of Faith in Christ we discover that life has no stones on it. Enough, mourning the deadly situations, and the "dead ones"!

The Appeal that the Lord makes is that there is no disappeared souls’ world, separated from us; stand-alone, devoid of communication with the actual one.

Archaic beliefs imagined Hades or Sheôl as a dark, fog-soaked cavern, populated here and there by insubstantial wandering larvae.

On the contrary, the world of the living ones is not separated from that of the ‘deceased’ ones.

«Lazarus is asleep» (v.11), that is: he is not a fallen, because men do not die. They pass from the creaturely life [bìos] to full Life [Zoe].

The ‘deceased’ left this world and entered the world of God, re-Born and begotten to his authentic, complete and definitive being.

Then: «Untie him and let him go!».

In short, Lazarus did not simply end up in the pit, nor, having been well put back on his feet by Christ, did he reappear in this form of life for another stretch... inexorably marked by the limit.

In the Gospel passage, in fact, while everyone goes to Jesus, Lazarus does not.

It is not this not what Jesus can do in the face of death. He does not immortalize this condition, otherwise all existence would continue to be a useless escape from the decisive appointment.

And it is time to stop crying our loved ones: «deceased», not ‘dead’.

We must not hold them back with obsessive visits, tormented memories, talismans, condolences: let them exist happily in their new condition!

Life for us and Life for those who have already flourished in the world of God's Peace - where we will live fully: with each other and for each other.

[St  Martha, Mary and Lazarus, July 29]

The Lord of Life (or the pale sign)

(Jn 11:1-45)

Jn 9:1-41 [the famous passage of the Born Blind] makes us reflect on the sign of the opening of the eyes.

Even in losers, there can be growth in awareness of personal dignity and vocation by Faith.

One question remains: a Light, if given in time... perhaps not much use.

Christ conveys to us a consciousness filled with perception and capable of sapiential, spiritual, missionary endeavour - but is there a final Goal or does it all end there?

If we have to fend for ourselves, what is the point of the biblical Promises? 

How come we feel longings for Fulness, then the plunge into nothingness?

Where is God's Love and omnipotence? What about the Risen One, the life of the Eternal One present among us? Has not his very life already been given to us?

The event of death disconcerts, and that of a friend of God in community [Bethany] perhaps accentuates questions about the meaning of our belief and commitment.

Why is it that in our hour of greatest need, the Lord allows us to fall? Why does he seem not to be there (v.21)?

Yet we understand that to be able to carry on an endless old age would not be a victory over death.

The belief of ancient cultures is that when the gods formed mankind they attributed death to it, and kept life for themselves.

Anyone who went in desperate search of the mythical herb that makes the old young had to resign himself: to die was to leave for a country with no return.

By letting even his dearest friends perish, Jesus educates us: it is not his intention to procrastinate biological existence (vv.14-15), nor simply to improve it a little.

Christ is not a 'doctor' who comes to postpone the appointment with death, but He who conquers death - because He transforms it into a Birth.

After all, a truly authentic, human and humanising life needs to look our condition in the face.

Health and physical life are gifts that everyone wants to prolong, but at the end they must be surrendered, in the Landing that no longer scratches.

Eternal [in the Gospels, the very Life of the Eternal: Zoè aiònios] is not this form of life [in the Gospels: Bìos - perhaps enhanced] but only its times of strong love.

This is the authenticity of grace to be asked for and developed. Perenniality to be responded to, a unique condition that does not give us checkmate.

The Ultimate World does not interfere with the natural course, although it may already manifest itself - in the intimate reality of multifaceted coexistence.

But this higher experience [of Covenant even with discomfort] lurks solely in that which is indestructible quality; personal, and in micro and macro relationships.

In particular, Communion: the only sign of the form of Life that takes on but does not waver, has no limits, and will have no end.

This is why the Lord does not enter the 'village' where others have gone to console and offer condolences.

He wants Mary to come out of the house where everyone is weeping in despair and offering condolences - as if everything were over.

She intends to get us out of the 'little village' where it is believed that the earthly end can only be senselessly deferred, to the tomb with no future.

He definitely wants us out of the little village where everyone is in mourning and left with the feigned consolation of funeral practices, 'relief' seasoned only with pretty phrases.

The natural emotion of parting does not hold back the tears, which spontaneously 'flow from the eyes, slide down' [dakryein-edakrysen].

The emotion does not produce a broken and shouted cry [klaiein] like the inconsolable one of the Jews [vv.33.35 Greek text; the Italian translation is confusing].

No farewell. This is followed by the order to remove the stone that at that time closed the tombs (v.39).

The strong reminder is absolutely imperative: the 'dead' are not 'dead', as the ancient religions believe; their life continues.

"Lazarus, out here!" [v.43 Greek text]: it is the cry of the victory of life. 

In the adventure of faith in Christ we discover that life has no stones on it.

Enough, groaning over deadly situations. They bring us closer to our roots, and to full bloom.

And we stop mourning the "dead"!

The appeal the Lord makes today - still after two millennia! - is that there is no such thing as a sunken world of the disappeared.

Compared to the going on earth, the departed are not well separated from us; in a place of their own, lacking communication with the present.

Archaic beliefs imagined Hades or Sheôl to be a dark cave, steeped in mist, here and there populated with insubstantial, wandering larvae.

The world of the living is not separate from that of the dead.

"Lazarus has fallen asleep" (v.11), i.e.: he is not a fallen man, for men do not die. They pass from creaturely life [bìos] to full Life [Zoè].The deceased has left this world and entered the world of God, re-born and begotten to his authentic, complete, definitive being.

Therefore: "Unbind him and let him go!".

In short, Lazarus did not simply end up in the grave, nor was he well revived by Christ he reappears in this form of life for another stretch... inexorably marked by limitation.

In the story, in fact, while everyone goes towards Jesus, Lazarus does not.

This is not what Jesus can do in the face of death. He does not immortalise this condition, otherwise existence would continue to be a useless flight from the decisive appointment.

And it is time to stop sobbing over the loved one: 'deceased', not 'dead'.

We should not hold it back with obsessive visits, tormented memories, talismans, condolences: let it exist happily in its new condition!

Life for us and Life for those who have already flourished in the world of God's Peace - where we live fully: with one another and for one another.

A condition that we can thus prefigure, dissolving not a few intimate blocks, external impediments, and relational laces; drowned in the moods of bitterness, consternation, and despondency:

"Even today Jesus repeats to us: 'Remove the stone. God did not create us for the grave, he created us for life, beautiful, good, joyful.

Therefore, we are called to remove the stones of everything that smacks of death: for example, the hypocrisy with which one lives the faith, it is death; the destructive criticism of others, it is death; the offence, the slander, it is death; the marginalisation of the poor, it is death.

The Lord asks us to remove these stones from our hearts, and life will then flourish around us again.

Christ lives, and whoever accepts Him and adheres to Him comes into contact with life. Without Christ, or outside of Christ, not only is there no life, but we fall back into death.

Let each one of us be close to those who are in trial, becoming for them a reflection of God's love and tenderness, which frees from death and makes life conquer".

[Pope Francis, Angelus 29 March 2020].

To internalise and live the message:

In the face of bereavement, what atmosphere do you perceive at home, in church, at the cemetery, during the funeral? And condolences, how do they affect you?

On Bethany [continuation of the Lazarus passage]:

Jesus Comes to the Feast, but as a stowaway

(Jn 11:45-56)

Christ is all that the Jewish feasts promised and proclaimed.

They decried authoritatively, but unconsciously (vv.47-52 take pleasure in double-meaning words).

The high priest was in fact speaking for God: he was interpreting the situation in a divinely inspired way.

In Christ, the promise made to Abraham was being fulfilled: the era of the dispersion of men was coming to an end.

The Cross would fulfil the vocation of the Temple: the recomposition of the people and the unity of the human being from the barren and distant land, in sharing and gratuitousness.

But what could also have been the starting point (energy) for Jesus not to retreat within the limits of his own environment down to the last detail, and to activate a path of rebirth?

The community of Bethany ['house of the poor'] is an image of the first realities of faith, destitute and composed of only brothers and sisters, without co-opted and appointed authorities. On a personal scale.

Where one could loosen those bonds that prevented one from going beyond the already known. Without patriarchs with calibrated, obsessive and vindictive control - where one does not look at oneself.

A nest of healthy relationships, which could give meaning even to wounds.

It is the only place where Jesus was at ease, the only reality in which we can still recognise him alive and present in the midst of - indeed, Source of life for the modest and needy.

Strident in the Gospel passage is the comparison with the vulgar cunning of the directors and the out-of-scale dimension of the commanded places and festivals.

As if no sap flows there between God's holiness and the real life of the lowly.

Despite the fact that the Master did good - as in all regimes, there was no lack of delinquents (v.46).

On the other hand, a large part of the inhabitants of Jerusalem found their material sustenance in the Temple activities.

Imagine if the top of the class would have let themselves be ripped off the bone to go after a stranger who intended to supplant the official institution and positions of privilege with an unadorned utopia.

The throne of the prince of the fraternal house was conversely without cushions, and the community co-ordinator a woman: Marta ['madam']. Backward, servant leader.

Anything but a reactionary defence of privileged positions and the ancient order... still all downward tensions and 'settling' according to chain of command, which never give us any hints of new life. A viscous situation that the initiative of the synodal path finally attempts to unhinge.Under Domitian, these small alternative realities - although caring for the small and distant - had to live like Jesus: clandestine.

They paid for their unity with the cross. But they renewed the life of the empire.

[That of Lazarus is] the last "sign" fulfilled by Jesus, after which the chief priests convened the Sanhedrin and deliberated killing him, and decided to kill the same Lazarus who was living proof of the divinity of Christ, the Lord of life and death. Actually, this Gospel passage shows Jesus as true Man and true God. First of all, the Evangelist insists on his friendship with Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. He emphasizes that "Jesus loved" them (Jn 11: 5), and this is why he wanted to accomplish the great wonder. "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him out of sleep" (Jn 11: 11), he tells his disciples, expressing God's viewpoint on physical death with the metaphor of sleep. God sees it exactly as sleep, from which he can awaken us. Jesus has shown an absolute power regarding this death, seen when he gives life back to the widow of Nain's young son (cf. Lk 7: 11-17) and to the 12 year-old girl (cf. Mk 5: 35-43). Precisely concerning her he said:  "The child is not dead but sleeping" (Mk 5: 39), attracting the derision of those present. But in truth it is exactly like this: bodily death is a sleep from which God can awaken us at any moment.

This lordship over death does not impede Jesus from feeling sincere "com-passion" for the sorrow of detachment. Seeing Martha and Mary and those who had come to console them weeping, Jesus "was deeply moved in spirit and troubled", and lastly, "wept" (Jn 11: 33, 35). Christ's heart is divine-human:  in him God and man meet perfectly, without separation and without confusion. He is the image, or rather, the incarnation of God who is love, mercy, paternal and maternal tenderness, of God who is Life. Therefore, he solemnly declared to Martha:  "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die". And he adds, "Do you believe this?" (Jn 11: 25-26). It is a question that Jesus addresses to each one of us:  a question that certainly rises above us, rises above our capacity to understand, and it asks us to entrust ourselves to him as he entrusted himself to the Father. Martha's response is exemplary:  "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world" (Jn 11: 27). Yes, O Lord! We also believe, notwithstanding our doubts and darkness; we believe in you because you have the words of eternal life. We want to believe in you, who give us a trustworthy hope of life beyond life, of authentic and full life in your Kingdom of light and peace.

We entrust this prayer to Mary Most Holy. May her intercession strengthen our faith and hope in Jesus, especially in moments of greater trial and difficulty.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 9 March 2008]

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (Jn 11:21, 32).

These words, which you have heard read in the Gospel of today's Mass, are pronounced first by Martha, then by Mary, the two sisters of Lazarus, and are addressed to Jesus of Nazareth, who was their friend and their brother's friend.

Today's liturgy presents the theme of death to our attention. This is now the fifth Sunday of Lent and the time of Christ's passion is approaching. The time of death and resurrection. Today we look at this fact through the death and resurrection of Lazarus. In Christ's messianic mission, this shattering event serves as a preparation for Holy Week and Easter.

2. ". . . my brother would not have died".

The voice of the human heart resounds in these words, the voice of a heart that loves and bears witness to what death is. All the time we hear about death and read news about the death of various people. There is systematic information on this subject. There is also death statistics. We know that death is a common and unceasing phenomenon. If around 145,000 people die on the globe every day, we can say that people die every moment. Death is a universal phenomenon and an ordinary fact. The universality and ordinariness of the fact confirm the reality of death, the inevitability of death, but, at the same time, they erase in a certain sense the truth about death, its penetrating eloquence.

The language of statistics is not enough here. The voice of the human heart is needed: the voice of a sister, as in today's Gospel, the voice of a person who loves. The reality of death can only be expressed in all its truth in the language of love.

For love resists death, and desires life . . .

Each of the two sisters of Lazarus does not say 'my brother is dead', but says: 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died'.

The truth about death can only be expressed from a perspective of life, from a desire for life: that is, from remaining in the loving communion of a person.

The truth about death is expressed in today's liturgy in relation to the voice of the human heart.

3. At the same time it is expressed in relation to the mission of Christ, the world's redeemer.

Jesus of Nazareth was the friend of Lazarus and his sisters. The death of his friend was also felt in his heart with a particular echo. When he came to Bethany, when he heard the weeping of the sisters and others who were fond of the deceased, Jesus "was deeply moved, he was troubled", and in this inner disposition he asked: "Where have you laid him?" (John 11: 33).

Jesus of Nazareth is at the same time the Christ, the one the Father sent to the world: he is the eternal witness of the Father's love. He is the ultimate spokesman of this love before men. He is in a certain sense the Host of it with regard to each and all. In him and for him the eternal love of the Father is confirmed and fulfilled in human history, confirmed and fulfilled in a superabundant manner.

And love opposes death and wants life.

Man's death, ever since Adam, is opposed to love: it is opposed to the love of the Father, the God of life.

The root of death is sin, which also opposes the Father's love. In human history, death is united with sin, and like sin it is opposed to love.

4. Jesus Christ came into the world to redeem man's sin; every sin that is rooted in man. That is why he confronted the reality of death; for death is united with sin in human history: it is the fruit of sin. Jesus Christ became man's redeemer through his death on the cross, which was the sacrifice that repaired all sin.

In his death, Jesus Christ confirmed the testimony of the Father's love. The love that resists death, and desires life, was expressed in the resurrection of Christ, of him who, to redeem the sins of the world, freely accepted death on the cross.

This event is called Easter: the paschal mystery. Every year we prepare for it through Lent, and today's Sunday now shows us this mystery at close quarters, in which God's love and power have been revealed, as life has brought victory over death.

5. What happened in Bethany at the tomb of Lazarus was almost the last announcement of the paschal mystery.

Jesus of Nazareth stood by the tomb of his friend Lazarus, and said: "Lazarus, come out!" (John 11: 43). With these words, full of power, Jesus raised him to life and brought him out of the tomb.

Before performing this miracle, Christ "lifted up his eyes and said: 'Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. I knew that you always listen to me, but I said this for the people around me, so that they might believe that you sent me'" (John 11: 41-42).At the tomb of Lazarus a particular confrontation of death with the redemptive mission of Christ took place. Christ was the witness of the eternal love of the Father, of that love that resists death and desires life. By raising Lazarus, he bore witness to this love. He also bore witness to God's exclusive power over life and death.

At the same time, at Lazarus' tomb, Christ was the prophet of his own mystery: of the paschal mystery, in which the redemptive death on the cross became the source of new life in the resurrection.

8. The pilgrimage, which you have undertaken today because of the Jubilee, introduces you, dear soldiers gathered here from different countries, into the mystery of redemption, through the liturgy of today's Lenten Sunday, which invites us to pause, I would say, on the frontier of life and death, to worship the presence and love of God.

Here are the words of the prophet Ezekiel: "Says the Lord God: 'You shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people'" (Ez 37:12, 13).

These words were fulfilled at the tomb of Lazarus in Bethany. They were definitively fulfilled at the tomb of Christ on Calvary. Today's liturgy makes us aware of this.

In the resurrection of Lazarus, God's power over man's spirit and body was manifested.

In Christ's resurrection, the Holy Spirit was granted as the source of new life: divine life. This life is man's eternal destiny. It is his vocation received from God. In this life, the eternal love of the Father is realised.

For love desires life and is opposed to death.

Dear brothers! Let us live this life! Let sin not dominate in us! Let us live this life, the price of which is redemption through Christ's death on the cross!

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom 8:11).

May the Holy Spirit dwell in you always through the grace of Christ's redemption. Amen.

[Pope John Paul II, Homily for the Jubilee of the Military 8 April 1984]

The Gospel [...] is the resurrection of Lazarus (cf. Jn 11:1-45). Lazarus was Martha and Mary’s brother; they were good friends of Jesus. When Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has already been dead for four days. Martha runs towards the Master and says to Him: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!” (v. 21). Jesus replies to her: “Your brother will rise again” (v. 23) and adds: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (v. 25). Jesus makes himself seen as the Lord of life, he who is capable of giving life even to the dead. Then Mary and other people arrive, in tears, and so Jesus — the Gospel says — “was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.... Jesus wept” (vv. 33, 35). With this turmoil in his heart, he goes to the tomb, thanks the Father who always listens to him, has the tomb opened and cries aloud: “Lazarus, come out!” (v. 43). And Lazarus emerges with “his hands and feet bound with bandages and his face wrapped with a cloth” (v. 44).

Here we can experience first hand that God is life and gives life, yet takes on the tragedy of death. Jesus could have avoided the death of his friend Lazarus, but he wanted to share in our suffering for the death of people dear to us, and above all, he wished to demonstrate God’s dominion over death. In this Gospel passage we see that the faith of man and the omnipotence of God, of God’s love, seek each other and finally meet. It is like a two lane street: the faith of man and the omnipotence of God’s love seek each other and finally meet. We see this in the cry of Martha and Mary, and of all of us with them: “If you had been here!”. And God’s answer is not a speech, no, God’s answer to the problem of death is Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life” ... have faith. Amid grief, continue to have faith, even when it seems that death has won. Take away the stone from your heart! Let the Word of God restore life where there is death.

Today, too, Jesus repeats to us: “Take away the stone”. God did not create us for the tomb, but rather he created us for life, [which is] beautiful, good, joyful. But “through the devil’s envy death entered the world” (Wis 2:24) says the Book of Wisdom, and Jesus Christ came to free us from its bonds.

We are thus called to take away the stones of all that suggests death: for example, the hypocrisy with which faith is lived, is death; the destructive criticism of others, is death; insults, slander, are death; the marginalization of the poor, is death. The Lord asks us to remove these stones from our hearts, and life will then flourish again around us. Christ lives, and those who welcome him and follow him come into contact with life. Without Christ, or outside of Christ, not only is life not present, but one falls back into death.

The resurrection of Lazarus is also a sign of the regeneration that occurs in the believer through Baptism, with full integration within the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Through the action and power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is a person who journeys in life as a new creature: a creature for life, who goes towards life.

May the Virgin Mary help us to be compassionate like her son Jesus, who made our suffering his own. May each of us be close to those who are in difficulty, becoming for them a reflection of God’s love and tenderness, which frees us from death and makes life victorious.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 29 March 2020]

From the fascinating proposal of Faith to the fatigue of withdrawal

(Mt 13:36-43)

The parable of the Sower as historically narrated by Jesus (vv.3-8) and that of the tares (vv.24-30) denote the total positivity of his Message.

The Lord proclaimed a new world; above all a different, tolerant and benevolent Heaven.

Even vv.18-23 contain a Good News, rather than a judgment: in our field both good wheat and weeds arise spontaneously, but all this is not a curse; on the contrary (v.23c).

It must however be admitted that the metaphor of vv.37-43 transforms the original parable (vv.24-30) into a moral allegory.

With symbolic elements, the different figurative expressions take up the original narrative of Jesus, trying to interpret it according to the common codes of traditional rabbinic preaching.

As for the teachers of Israel, here too the [next] intent is to shake the listeners, in order to emphasize the personal, community and spiritual importance of the fundamental choices - in the present.

At House (v.36), that is, in the Church, a debate is created first of all on the explanation of why Jesus does not impose a preventive sterilization of the wheat field.

In the uncertainty, particular clarifications are attempted - according to which, however, the passage [which is the result of subsequent editing, debate and reflection] risks overturning the meaning of the Jesus parable itself.

Well, in his people of brethren and in society, the Master did not intend to erase a priori the profitable sense of the ineffable and mysterious dynamics of ‘mixing’: reality of this world with full rights.

Such is the essential, universalist Proclamation of the young Rabbi, in spite of the ancient purist clichés.

Legalist religiosity was selective, élitist, conformist; attentive to the maintenance of social hierarchies.

In this way, it constituted a dense-mesh cultural hood, and evaluated in an abstract, preventive mode, what should be considered good or bad for all.

Yet the idea of algid perfection [sterile of life] did not allow the energies of concrete existence to prepare the future and generate the same Novelty of the Spirit.

Christ's encounter with the believer changes everything in his life, certainly - but not from an assumed gradation of values, procedures and pre-written sentences.

In reality one becomes attentive to perceive the eccentricity of the sisters and brothers by the fact that one has experienced the blessing embrace of the Father on his own "defects".

Not for a sense of emotional paternalism, but because not infrequently the resources that solve real problems and activate the Redemption of God come from the whirlwind of precious contradictions and indigences that we have inside.

They make us less one-sided, more flexible and complete. Exceptional, alive; able to rely on the internal world, instead of the external one.

So capable to implement a turning point.

We see it: to make the world grow and reborn from the global crisis, each subject (even institutional) is called to reinvent itself outside of every score already arranged and recognized.

And today perhaps starting from what in the habit of thought was  considered nothing but sin, or annoying dissonance; incompleteness, limit... so on.

Suddenly and blatantly, imbalances and fluctuations make a difference also in terms of quality. They become opportunities not to be missed: an extra gear; spring power, a drive to activate the unprecedented, and open up.

Here is a substantial difference between common religiosity and the life of Faith. The character of Duplicity makes us healthier and more perfect - and God is not biased.

Indeed, in the eyes of the Father it is precisely the unrepeatable uncertainties [not by protocol] that make every one of his sons special, unique.

In short, you grow, get richer, and correspond to your personal Vocation, only by putting into play, integrating and transmuting boundaries - not denying them.

[Tuesday 17th wk. in O.T.  July 28, 2026]

(Mt 13:36-43)

Completeness: Duplicity

From the fascinating proposal of Faith to the fatigue of retreat (2)

The parable of the Sower as historically narrated by Jesus (vv.3-8) and the parable of the tares (vv.24-30) denote the total positivity of his Message.

The Lord proclaimed a new world; first of all a different, tolerant and benevolent Heaven.

The principle of our life as saved is not what we do for God, but what He (Generous and Patient) creates for us.

Just like a condescending and longsuffering Parent, who ceaselessly provides opportunities for life.

The Master intended to shift the criterion of the pious life: from personal effort to allowing oneself to be saved, surrendering one's point of view.

Redemption is rooted in His providential initiative, in His gratuitous liberality, in His serene calm.

All conditions that allow each one a process of interaction, assimilation and reworking: a broad time of growth.

But the reflection that immediately follows - just a few decades after the Lord's death - begins to suffer from the dominant cultural cliché on the side, and unfortunately undermines both its character and its transparency.

The Son proclaimed only the longsuffering of the Father: Subject, Motive and Engine of our ability to face every path of flourishing.

In later reflection, the original parables become allegories, overflowing with symbols of defined moralistic meaning - all in all, banal.

In this way, we see them veined with impersonal considerations about the quality of the soil, or even of the Seed!

The latter - no longer identified with His Word, but in a certain zealous type of disciples [of little specific weight and proposal: those who would always feel surrounded by adversaries].

Such an inauspicious passage testifies to the difficulty of understanding the Son of God's astounding call from the earliest communities.

The Lord intended to suggest a path of Faith to all, precisely to supplant the anxiogenic yoke of the religious model - which, on the other hand, remained as an attractive archetype of discernment criteria.

A heavy yoke, albeit a usual one, that did not start from Love; for the very fact that it presupposed stinginess, inadequacies, and shame everywhere - even in the spiritual life [shrunken, perpetually in the balance, stingy, always insufficient].

We know the situations.

Instead, even vv.18-23 contain a glad tidings, rather than a judgement: in our field both good wheat and weeds arise spontaneously, but this is not a curse regardless; on the contrary (v.23c).

However, it must be admitted that the metaphor of vv.37-43 transforms the original parable (vv.24-30) into a moral allegory.

The metaphor that follows the initial parable is intended to emphasise that the presence of "evil" in the world is not to be attributed to the lack of vitality of the Seed, nor to the divine Work.

The protagonist of the passage [from v.18 and v.36] is no longer God and His munificent gesture, who spares no expense in sowing His Seed, but rather the type of soil - or here the new "good seed": the apostle himself - who would become the true "subject" of the spiritual path.

One thus enters the minefield of devotions: it seems that it is the woman and the man, the one who actually receives the Word, who must focus on himself, and identify his own shortcomings.

In addition - having finally become aware of them, a clear conscience, a natural ability and even familiarity - to strive to 'improve' according to models, on pain of exclusion from the ranks of the 'best'.

[All this leads normal people to a depersonalisation of the very quality of the Calling, and to an insane expenditure of energy].

The ethical idea - in fact - erases trust. It does not enhance the propulsive dynamism of ordinary existence. It always finds before it imperfections and tangles to unravel.

It is these, and thoughts, that get in the way. Conversely, in order to realise and complete oneself, such ballasts should be placed in the background, thrown behind one's back; flown forward.

The danger of such an approach is that it will end up piling distinction upon distinction, obsessing people with invincible sin. And affect the character lines of those who take the legalist binary seriously.

Such disembodied ethics cages the most sensitive - who unfortunately gradually exchange self-consciousness for the guilt-ridden myths [artefacts] of perfection.

Except for the careless and opportunistic, 'religion' taken head-on has always rhymed with prison.

Indeed, it still paradoxically makes the judgement of still being 'bad seed' the protagonist of our path! Other people's opinion and exterior.

In addition, there is the torment of still feeling under the cloak of perpetual 'sin': transgression and guilt that the fundamental option for God was intended to exorcise.In fact, epidermic sentencing does not know the different and very normal energies of man - all mouldable and potentially preparatory, to be fully perceived, assumed, invested.

Every prejudice, even a sacred one, actually overlooks the multifacetedness of the person, and finally turns into that deadening principle of self and others, which by proclamation would never want to be.

Because of extrinsic or recondite efforts, every external paradigm ends up losing the Way of God's Newness, its relevance, and the real Vocation - perhaps mistaking them for ballast.

The metaphor (vv.37-43) is precisely the result of the interpretation of early assemblies still under the influence of the ancient target of external, formal, apparent 'sterilisation' and 'coherence' - ethical rather than relational.

Similarly to what has already been mentioned above, even vv.18-23 contain a Glad Tidings, rather than a judgement: in our field both good wheat and weeds arise spontaneously, but this is not a curse regardless; on the contrary (v.23c).

However, it must be admitted that the metaphor of vv.37-43 transforms the original parable (vv.24-30) into a moral allegory.

With symbolic elements, the different figurative expressions take up the original narrative of Jesus, trying to interpret it according to the common codes of traditional rabbinic preaching.

As with the teachers of Israel, the next intent here is to shake up the listeners, in order to emphasise the personal, communal and spiritual importance of the diriment choices - in today's world.

However, in this passage we get the impression that the editors got caught up in the banal idea of immediate and decisive justice.

And yet haste is always inimical to the things of God.... [apart from the fact that time is often the medicine that makes useless branches, or so many parasitic elements, spontaneously wither].

In the House (v.36), i.e. in the Church, there is first of all a debate as to why Jesus does not impose a preventive sterilisation of the cornfield.

In doing so, he unfortunately opens the door to that 'purism' which the Son of God abhorred as nefarious.

This, although the evangelist's attempt to stem defections was understandable - screening well any attempt to adapt to cultural frames, to situations.

But by yielding to evaluations of efficacy and outline, the central point of the original narration of the Son of Man - and He Himself - is as if broken up into pattern elements.

A casuistry perhaps easier to digest, but even independent of the sense of the main narrative (vv.18-23).

Finally, there is the risk of identifying the Will of God with that of a Church of the elect and impecunious. A community almost placed upstream of any growth process.

In the uncertainty, particular clarifications are attempted here - according to which, however, the passage, the result of subsequent drafting, debate and reflection, risks overturning the meaning of the Jesus parable itself.

Indeed, in his people of brothers and society, the Master did not intend to erase a priori the fruitful sense of the ineffable and mysterious dynamics of 'mixing': a reality of this world in its own right.

Such was the essential, universalist proclamation of the young Rabbi; in spite of ancient purist clichés, or spineless fashions.

Legalistic religiosity was selective, elitist, conformist; concerned with maintaining social hierarchies.

As such, it constituted a tightly knit cultural cloak, and assessed in an abstract, pre-emptive way what should be considered good or bad for everyone.

Yet the idea of icy perfection [sterile of life] did not allow the preparatory energies of concrete existence to prepare the future and generate the very Newness of the Spirit.

Yet (the passage in Matthew bears witness to this) soon after Christ's death the conviction of undefiledness and the mentality of distinctions began to creep in again and take over.

This was due to the fact that externally, small communities had to confront (head-on) the rankings, the context of religions, moralistic conformisms, and the usual paradigms of widespread culture.

In some cases, this configuration led to a lack of humanity.

Historically speaking - in the second and third generation of believers, the acceptance of Jesus as Lord of one's life was perhaps in danger of becoming more binding and identifying than propelling the character of personal uniqueness - activating Freedom.

Christ's encounter with the believer changes everything in his life, certainly - but not from a presupposed hierarchy of values, procedures and pre-written sentences.

One actually becomes alert to perceive the eccentricity of one's brothers and sisters because one has experienced the Father's blessing embrace of one's 'faults'.Not out of a sense of emotional paternalism, but because not infrequently the resources that solve the real problems and activate God's Redemption come from the whirlwind of precious contradictions and destitution within us.

It is precisely these that make us less one-sided, more ductile and complete. Exceptional, alive; able to rely on the inner world instead of the outer world.

Therefore capable of a breakthrough.

Instead, exclusivism - where established morality takes the lion's share, hand in hand with appearance - has never let the living Faith, nor the world, grow.

We can see it: in order to make the world grow and make it reborn from the global crisis, each subject [even institutional] is called upon to reinvent itself outside of any already arranged and recognised score.

And today, perhaps precisely from what in the custom of thought was considered nothing more than a flaw, or annoying dissonance; incompleteness, limitation... and so on.

Suddenly and blatantly, imbalances and oscillations also make a difference in terms of quality.

They become opportunities not to be missed: an extra gear; spring power, a drive to activate the unheard of, and open up.

Here is a substantial difference between common religiosity and the life of Faith.

Duplicity makes us healthier and more perfect - and God is not prejudiced.

On the contrary, in the Father's eyes, it is precisely the unrepeatable uncertainties (not protocol) that make each of his children special, unique.

In short, one grows, is enriched and corresponds to one's personal Vocation only by bringing into play, integrating and transmuting boundaries - not by denying them.

47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart's time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ[39]. The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace. If it were merely grace, making all earthly things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the question about justice—the crucial question that we ask of history and of God. If it were merely justice, in the end it could bring only fear to us all. The incarnation of God in Christ has so closely linked the two together—judgement and grace—that justice is firmly established: we all work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or parakletos (cf. 1 Jn 2:1).

[Pope Benedict, Encyclical Spe Salvi no.47]