Face to the Person, Father in relationship

Mt 18:1-5.10.(12-14)

The Gospel passage dictates the line of the entire ecclesial discourse of Mt (18:1-35).

The key term in vv.1-5 is «paidìon» - diminutive of «pàis» - which stands for the shop boy, the little one between 9 and 11 years of age, who also at home had to provide immediately, after every command received.

Jesus crushes the ambitions of greatness of his craving disciples, who would like to seize him and put him on a leash.

The model of the Kingdom is not the commander, but the servant; the one who does not act with a common mindset, out of a spirit of self-interest or promotion.

It is not a sin to desire to give meaning to one's life, but there is a reversal: 'greater' is the 'lesser' - he who does not covet pre-eminent places, remains humble in feeling, condition, and position.

The overt importance is a deception: the true “greats” of the church community do not belong to the world of the perfectly installed, who come forward, who know who to lean on, and thus know how to impose themselves.

From v.6 the author speaks of «mikròi»: the voiceless. They are those who have no weight.

These “little ones” are «tiny ones» who have heard of the spirit of communion that exists between sisters and brothers of Faith…

They would like to experience the benefit of this new Way without mortifying pretensions, a solicitous way to recovery...

They try to begin, but sometimes they shy away from it, fatigued by improper situations.

Jesus displaces us: the 'outcasts' are the only ones who make us shout for joy, and they are worth more than the whole flock of habituals (vv.12-14).

The Recall also applies to us: it is precisely in the isolated, lost and seemingly most insignificant people that the flowering of large spontaneous content is particularly lively..

In them lurks the Sap that regenerates the world, and the Newness of God is revealed [who also wants to guide us today in our vocational and social exodus].

In short: fixed ideas condition life and do not allow the inner organism - psychic and spiritual - to feed on transparent (unprejudiced) truths and sincere feelings, which would like to give us breath.

Freeing oneself from the usual ways of going about things, dissolving prejudices and schematic beliefs, would allow one to break the chains that hold back the faculties, opening up other views.

In fact, the solution to the complications that suffocate the soul and the experience of the fullness of being we seek is not external, but inherent in our own question.

In biblical language, the figure of the Angel (v.10) expresses God Himself in dialogue with the personal soul; His Presence in us, in situation - and here our paradoxical fruitfulness.

The Angel is our own eminent and total Self, who knows how to retrieve opposites, who grasps secrets, suggests, guides; he knows our unique versatility, and in this way knows where to go.

Thus, authentic life is shrouded in Mystery, even in the step-by-step.

Our existence is not all in the circle of visible achievements, apparent affirmations, and material, trivial things, more or less at hand.

Life if complete introduces us into the Calling by Name that leads to fulfilment and blossoming, opens us to the Relationship that counts.

To internalize and live the message:

Why do you think Jesus speaks of Angels in heaven, and Joy in reference to the one sheep?

[Tuesday 19th wk. in O.T.  August 13, 2024]

Face to Person, Father in relationship

(Mt 18:1-5.10.12-14)

The Gospel passage dictates the line of the entire ecclesial discourse of Mt (18:1-35). The key term of vv.1-5 is paidìon - diminutive of pàis - which stands for the shop boy, the little boy of about 9-11 years of age, who even in the home had to snap after every order received.

Jesus crushes the ambitions of greatness of his covetous apostles, who want to seize him for themselves. Yes, they always tail him, but they do not follow him - on the contrary, they would like to seize him and put him on a leash.

The model of the Kingdom is not the commander, but the servant; the one who does not act with a current mentality, out of a spirit of self-interest or promotion.

It is not a sin to desire to give meaning to one's life, but there is a reversal: greater is the lesser - he who does not covet pre-eminent places, remains humble in feeling, condition and position.

Even in spiritual life, he who wants to get there immediately or does good (not out of gratuitousness but only) to secure future positions, scatters his Pearl. The overt importance is a deception: the true 'greats' of the church community do not belong to the world of the 'best', the perfectly installed in society - the quick-witted who come forward and know how to impose themselves.

From v.6 the author speaks of mikròi: the voiceless. They are those who carry no weight, perhaps those who cannot even get accepted into some exclusive 'spiritual' pressure group or clique.

These 'little ones' are those who sooner or later - despite prior exclusion - find their way to the community of the faithful in Christ. They have heard of the spirit of collaboration, synergy and communion that exists between sisters and brothers of Faith. They would like to experience the benefit of this new way of coexistence without humiliating, recovery-oriented demands...

They try to start, but sometimes they shy away from it. Fatigued by the rigmarole, unable to have a personal relationship with the Lord (because in front of them and on every occasion they find themselves with the usual hedge of managers to whom they should pay duties and submit), often irritated by the empty vanity of those who not infrequently turn out to be unscrupulous and very dangerous people.

Jesus does not go easy on them: the excluded are the only ones who make them shout for joy, and they are worth much more than the whole flock of those included (vv.12-14).

The reminder also applies to us: it is precisely in the isolated, lost and seemingly most insignificant people that the great spontaneous content flourishes.

In them lurks the sap that regenerates the world, and the Newness of God is revealed (who also wants to guide us today in our vocational and social exodus).

Simplicity and upheaval: Rebirth without mortification

It is not a question of finding excuses to justify laziness in the spiritual search and exodus: small, spontaneous and natural - but rich inside - one becomes, lowering oneself (Mt 18:3-4 Greek text) from one's character.

It is the art of making life dense and complex, multifaceted and vast, then simplifying, without dispersing. Often all it takes is to look differently or to look elsewhere, to find a thousand unexpected and self-regenerating outlets.

In fact, the solution to the complications that suffocate the soul and the experience of the fullness of being we seek, is not external, but inherent in our own question. It not infrequently belongs to pre-understandings rather than reality or the tide that comes, which simply wants to drag us into the territory of growth.

We are obnubilated by thoughts. But there is an innate knowledge that watches over our uniqueness and does not intoxicate the soul. There is a secret time and space that inhabits us: they resonate with the Gospels. There is no need to "catch up" with all time.

If we surrender to such a wise instinct, comforted by the Word, the Core of Being will come forth with its primordial energies - recreating the earth like the mythical Child of the World: a little Jesus - within and without us. Thus the disaster of the Coronavirus is also annihilated, and we are resurrected: each in his own way (which is not 'his' in the sense of arbitrariness).

And when, in particular cases, we are able to welcome the happenings as a Call to come out of our cages so that we perceive the elsewhere, we will find an intimate result that unravels and re-launches the personal way and the possibilities of exchanging new, non-stereotypical gifts - without even experiencing the tiredness and subtle dissatisfactions we know.

Projected totally into external problems, we overload our mind and spirit with expectations induced by the (once) in vogue cultural paradigm to which we are accustomed. Thus existence quickly becomes conformist again, stagnant in the usual means and goals, devoid of new peaks, authentic relationships and unimagined vitality.The diktat of the objective induced by the roles we imagined we had acquired exhausts us, and the instituted idea of perfection sterilises the humus - it impoverishes us, putting actual needs in brackets; thus making ways of being prevail, consolidated roles already expressed, drying up relationships (making environments murky again).

Fixed ideas condition life and do not allow the inner organism - psychic and spiritual - to feed on transparent (unprejudiced) truths and sincere feelings, which would like to give us breath.

Freeing ourselves from the usual ways of going about things, from apodictic judgments and convictions, would allow us to break the chains that hold back the luminous and rainbow faculties, as well as the ability to correspond to the unrepeatable vocation, opening up other views.

The 'emptiness' advocated by the Tao resembles only in earshot the 'emptiness' of other (decidedly more depersonalising) Eastern wisdom because the teaching of the Way does not lose the sense of uniqueness and exceptionality of the individual seed. On the contrary, it fully respects its propulsive vocation remaining oneself, not only in spite of - but because of - the obligatory abyss we have experienced.

By minimising, on the other hand, the intentions of re-editing the old maquillage - and all non-epochal conditioning (which does not call us, nor would we like to) - we clear the soul of its ballast. We bring out its exceptional specific weight and unrepeatable character, to lighten it and fill it only with what is needed to activate the new paths that await us.

The slowing down and letting go that Lao Tse advocates does not lead to the insignificant flattening of differences, but to dilating the sacred and natural times of wise action, and appreciating its value.

Stages and goals that do not correspond to us will not provide fulfilment, forcing us to amplify our relationships only to cover the problem with ourselves, or even the couple, group, movement, community and work environment.

While we wish to clothe (and not depose) with a sense of permanence the character of before - a cliché that does not correspond to us - we turn in circles, loading ourselves with outsized expectations and useless stress (which makes no room for the love with which we meet ourselves, things, sisters and brothers, the many events).

Natural Wisdom, even bitter events, and the Bible, remind us that the face... every path, name and rhythm is ours alone. So is the synthesis: each one is called to write his or her own unrepeatable glad tidings on behalf of the woman and man of all times (Jn 20:30-31).

Please note: Fraternity is not levelling:

"But there are many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written down one by one, I think that not even the world itself could contain the books that should be written" (Jn 21:25).

That would be Happiness in the new eminent Beauty, from discomfort.

In biblical language, the figure of the Angel (v.10) expresses God Himself in dialogue with the personal soul; His Presence in us, in situation - and here our paradoxical fruitfulness.

The Angel is our own eminent and total Self, who knows how to retrieve opposites, who grasps secrets, suggests, guides; he knows our fruitful versatility, and in this way knows where to go.

In short, authentic life is shrouded in Mystery, even in the step-by-step.

The existence that distinguishes us is not all in the circle of visible achievements, of apparent affirmations, and of material, trivial things, more or less at hand.

Complete Life introduces us into the Calling by Name that leads to fulfilment and blossoming, opens us to the Relationship that is worthwhile.

To internalise and live the message:

Why do you think Jesus speaks of Angels in heaven, and Joy in reference to the one sheep?

Why does Jesus speak of Joy in reference to the one sheep?

Value of imperfect uniqueness

(Mt 18:12-14)

The change of course and destiny of the Kingdom. A God in search of the lost and unequal, to expand our life. Christology of the Pallium, power of caresses, joyful energy (in dissociation).

Says the Tao Tê Ching (x): "Preserve the One by dwelling in the two souls: are you able to keep them apart?"

Even in the spiritual journey, Jesus is careful not to propose a dictated or planned universalism, as if his were an ideal model, "for the purpose of homogenisation" [Fratelli Tutti n.100].

The type of Communion that the Lord proposes to us does not aim at "a one-dimensional uniformity that seeks to eliminate all differences and traditions in a superficial search for unity".

Because "the future is not 'monochromatic', but if we have the courage, it is possible to look at it in the variety and diversity of the contributions that each one can make. How much our human family needs to learn to live together in harmony and peace without us all being equal!" [from an Address to Young People in Tokyo, November 2019].Although the piety and hope of the representatives of official religiosity was founded on a structure of human, ethnic, cultural securities and a vision of the Mystery consolidated by a great tradition, Jesus crumbles all predictability.

In the Son, God is revealed no longer as exclusive property, but as the Power of Love that forgives the marginalised and lost: saving and creating, liberating. And through the disciples, he unfolds his Face that recovers, breaks down the usual barriers, calls out to miserable multitudes.

It seems an impossible utopia to realise in concrete terms (today of the health and global crisis), but it is the sense of the handover to the Church, called to become an incessant prod of the Infinite and ferment of an alternative world, for integral human development:

"Let us dream as one humanity, as wayfarers made of the same human flesh, as children of this same earth that hosts us all, each with the richness of his faith or convictions, each with his own voice, all brothers!" [FT No.8].

Through an absurd question (rhetorically formulated) Jesus wants to awaken the conscience of the 'just': there is a counterpart of us that supposes of itself, very dangerous, because it leads to exclusion, to abandonment.

Instead, inexhaustible Love seeks. And it finds the imperfect and restless.

The swamp of stagnant energy that is generated by accentuating boundaries does not make anyone grow: it locks in the usual positions and leaves everyone to make do or lose themselves. Out of self-interested disinterest - that impoverishes everyone.

This causes the creative virtues to fall into despair.

It plunges those outside the circle of the elect - those who had nothing superior - into despair. Indeed, the evangelists portray them as utterly incapable of beaming with human joy at the progress of others.

Calculating, acting and conforming - the fundamentalist or overly sophisticated and disembodied leaders use religion as a weapon.

Instead, God is at the antipodes of the fake sterilised - or disembodied thinking - and seeking one who wanders shakily, easily becomes disoriented, loses his way. 

Sinful yet true, therefore more disposed to genuine Love. This is why the Father is searching for the insufficient.

The person who is so limpid and spontaneous - even if weak - conceals his best side and vocational richness precisely behind the apparently detestable sides. Perhaps that he himself does not appreciate.

This is the principle of Redemption that astounds and makes interesting our often distracted paths, conducted by trial and error - in Faith, however, generating self-esteem, credit, fullness and joy.

The commitment of the purifier and the impetus of the reformer are 'trades' that seemingly oppose each other, but are easy... and typical of those who think that the things to be challenged and changed are always outside themselves.

For example, in mechanisms, in general rules, in the legal framework, in worldviews, in formal (or histrionic) aspects instead of the craft of the concrete particular good; and so on.

They seem to be excuses not to look inside oneself and get involved, not to meet one's deepest states in all aspects and not only in the guidelines. And to recover or cheer up individuals who are concretely lost, sad, in all dark and difficult sides.

But God is at the antipodes of sterilised mannerists or fake idealists, and in search of the insufficient: he who wanders and loses his way. Sinful yet true, therefore more disposed to genuine Love.

The transparent and spontaneous person - even if weak - hides his best part and vocational richness precisely behind the apparently detestable aspects (perhaps which he himself does not appreciate).

So let us ask for solutions to the mysterious, unpredictable interpersonal energies that come into play; from within things.

Without interfering with or opposing ideas of the past or future that we do not see. Rather by possessing its soul, its spontaneous drug.

This is the principle of Salvation that astounds and makes interesting our paths [often distracted, led by trial and error] - ultimately generating self-esteem, credit and joy.

The idea that the Most High is a notary or prince of a forum, and makes a clear distinction between righteous and transgressors, is caricature.

After all, a life of the saved is not one's own making, nor is it exclusive possession or private ownership - which turns into duplicity.

It is not the squeamish attitude, nor the cerebral attitude, that unites one to Him. The Father does not blandish suppliant friendships, nor does He have outside interests.

He rejoices with everyone, and it is need that draws Him to us. So let us not be afraid to let Him find us and bring us back (cf. Lk 15:5) to His house, which is our house.

If there is a loss, there will be a finding, and this is not a loss for anyone - except for the envious enemies of freedom (v.10).For the LORD is not pleased with marginalisation, nor does he intend to extinguish the smoking lamp.

Jesus does not come to point the finger at the bad times, but to make up for them, by leveraging intimate involvement. Invincible force of faithfulness.

This is the style of a Church with a Sacred Heart, lovable, elevated and blessed.

[What attracts one to participate and express oneself is to feel understood, restored to full dignity - not condemned].

Carlo Carretto said: 'It is by feeling loved, not criticised, that man begins his journey of transformation'.

As the encyclical Fratelli Tutti emphasises again:

Jesus - our Engine and Motive - "had an open heart, which made the dramas of others its own" (n.84).

And he adds as an example of our great Tradition:

"People can develop certain attitudes which they present as moral values: fortitude, sobriety, industriousness and other virtues. But in order to properly direct the acts [...] we must also consider to what extent they realise a dynamism of openness and union [...] Otherwise we will only have appearances'.

"St Bonaventure explained that the other virtues, without charity, strictly speaking do not fulfil the commandments as God intends them" (n.91).

In sects or one-sidedly inspired groups, human and spiritual riches are deposited in a secluded place, so they grow old and debased.

In the assemblies of the sons, on the other hand, they are shared: they grow and communicate; by multiplying, they green up, for universal benefit.

To internalise and live the message:

What attracts you to the Church? In comparisons with the top of the class, do you feel judged or adequate?

Do you feel the Love that saves, even if you remain uncertain?

68. Christ Jesus always manifested his preferential love for the little ones (cf. Mk 10:13-16). The Gospel itself is deeply permeated by the truth about children. What, indeed, is meant by these words: “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3)? Does not Jesus make the child a model, even for adults? The child has something which must never be lacking in those who would enter the kingdom of heaven. Heaven is promised to all who are simple, like children, to all who, like them, are filled with a spirit of trusting abandonment, pure and rich in goodness. They alone can find in God a Father and become, through Jesus, children of God. Sons and daughters of our parents, God wants us all to become his adopted children by grace!

[Africae Munus 68]

The Old Testament already usually speaks of God as the Shepherd of Israel, the people of the covenant, chosen by him to carry out the plan of salvation. Psalm 22 is a marvellous hymn to the Lord, the Shepherd of our soul:

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; / he makes me lie down in green pastures, / he leads me beside still waters, / he restores my soul. / He leads me in paths of righteousness... / Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, / I fear no evil; / for thou art with me..." (Ps 22:1-3).

The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel often return to the subject of the people as "the Lord's flock": "Behold your God!... He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms..." (Is 40:11). Above all, they announce the Messiah as a Shepherd who will really feed his sheep and not let them go astray any more: "I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd..." (Ez 34: 23).

This sweet and moving figure of the shepherd is a familiar one in the Gospel. Even if times have changed owing to industrialization and urbanism, it always keeps its fascination and effectiveness; and we all remember the touching and poetic parable of the Good Shepherd who goes in search of the lost sheep (Lk 15:3-7).

In the early times of the Church, Christian iconography used a great deal and developed this subject of the Good Shepherd, whose image often appears, painted or sculpted, in the catacombs, sarcophagi and baptismal fonts. This iconography, so interesting and reverent, testifies to us that, right from the early times of the Church, Jesus "the Good Shepherd" struck and moved the hearts of believers and non-believers, and was a cause of conversion, spiritual commitment and comfort. Well, Jesus "the Good Shepherd" is still alive and true today in our midst, in the midst of the whole of mankind, and he wants to let each of us hear his voice and feel his love.

1) What does it mean to be the Good Shepherd?

Jesus explains it to us with convincing clearness.

— The shepherd knows his sheep and the sheep know him. How wonderful and consoling it is to know that Jesus knows us one by one; that for him we are not anonymous persons; that our name—that name which is agreed upon by loving parents and friends—is known to him! For Jesus we are not a "mass", a "multitude"! We are individual "persons" with an eternal value, both as creatures and as re-deemed persons! He knows us! He knows me, and loves me and gave himself for me! (Gal 2:20).

[...]

(Pope John Paul II, homily 6 May 1979)

After reviewing the various members of the family — mother, father, children, siblings, grandparents —, I would like to conclude this first group of catecheses on the family by speaking about children. I will do so in two phases: today I will focus on the great gift that children are for humanity — it is true they are a great gift for humanity, but also really excluded because they are not even allowed to be born — and the next time I shall focus on several wounds that unfortunately harm childhood. Who come to mind are the many children I met during my recent journey to Asia: full of life, of enthusiasm, and, on the other hand, I see that in the world, many of them live in unworthy conditions.... In fact, from the way children are treated society can be judged, not only morally but also sociologically, whether it is a liberal society or a society enslaved by international interests.

First of all children remind us that we all, in the first years of life, were completely dependent upon the care and benevolence of others. The Son of God was not spared this stage. It is the mystery that we contemplate every year at Christmas. The Nativity Scene is the icon which communicates this reality in the simplest and most direct way. It is curious: God has no difficulty in making Himself understood by children, and children have no difficulty in understanding God. It is not by chance that in the Gospel there are several very beautiful and powerful words of Jesus regarding the “little ones”. This term, “babes”, refers to all the people who depend on the help of others, and to children in particular. For example, Jesus says: “I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to babes” (Mt 11:25). And again: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones: for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 18:10).

Thus, children are in and of themselves a treasure for humanity and also for the Church, for they constantly evoke that necessary condition for entering the Kingdom of God: that of not considering ourselves self-sufficient, but in need of help, of love, of forgiveness. We all are in need of help, of love and of forgiveness! Children remind us of another beautiful thing: they remind us that we are always sons and daughters. Even if one becomes an adult, or an elderly person, even if one becomes a parent, if one occupies a position of responsibility, underneath all of this is still the identity of a child. We are all sons and daughters. And this always brings us back to the fact that we did not give ourselves life but that we received it. The great gift of life is the first gift that we received. Sometimes in life we risk forgetting about this, as if we were the masters of our existence, and instead we are fundamentally dependent. In reality, it is a motive of great joy to feel at every stage of life, in every situation, in every social condition, that we are and we remain sons and daughters. This is the main message that children give us, by their very presence: simply by their presence they remind us that each and every one of us is a son or daughter.

But there are so many gifts, so many riches that children bring to humanity. I shall mention only a few.

They bring their way of seeing reality, with a trusting and pure gaze. A child has spontaneous trust in his father and mother; he has spontaneous trust in God, in Jesus, in Our Lady. At the same time, his interior gaze is pure, not yet tainted by malice, by duplicity, by the “incrustations” of life which harden the heart. We know that children are also marked by original sin, that they are selfish, but they preserve purity, and interior simplicity. But children are not diplomats: they say what they feel, say what they see, directly. And so often they put their parents in difficulty, saying in front of other people: “I don’t like this because it is ugly”. But children say what they see, they are not two-faced, they have not yet learned that science of duplicity that we adults have unfortunately learned.

Furthermore, children — in their interior simplicity — bring with them the capacity to receive and give tenderness. Tenderness is having a heart “of flesh” and not “of stone”, as the Bible says (cf. Ezek 36:26). Tenderness is also poetry: it is “feeling” things and events, not treating them as mere objects, only to use them, because they are useful....

Children have the capacity to smile and to cry. Some, when I pick them up to embrace them, smile; others see me dressed in white and think I am a doctor and that I am going to vaccinate them, and they cry... spontaneously! Children are like this: they smile and cry, two things which are often “stifled” in grown-ups, we are no longer capable.... So often our smile becomes a cardboard smile, fixed, a smile that is not natural, even an artificial smile, like a clown. Children smile spontaneously and cry spontaneously. It always depends on the heart, and often our heart is blocked and loses this capacity to smile, to cry. So children can teach us how to smile and cry again. But we must ask ourselves: do I smile spontaneously, frankly, with love or is my smile artificial? Do I still cry or have I lost the capacity to cry? These are two very human questions that children teach us.

For all these reasons Jesus invited his disciples to “become like children”, because “the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them” (cf. Mt 18:3; Mk 10:14).

Dear brothers and sisters, children bring life, cheerfulness, hope, also troubles. But such is life. Certainly, they also bring worries and sometimes many problems; but better a society with these worries and these problems, than a sad, grey society because it is without children! When we see that the birth rate of a society is barely one percent, we can say that this society is sad, it is grey because it has no children.

[Pope Francis, General Audience 18 March 2015]

Without mechanisms, nor obligations that do not concern us

(Mt 17:22-27)

Even the Jews dispersed in the Roman world paid an annual tax for the maintenance of the Temple, which in reality did not figure among the obligatory contributions provided for in the Torah (Ex 30,11-16).

Converts to the new Faith in Christ of Galilee and Syria wondered if they still had the obligation to continue paying the sum for the place of worship and the priestly class.

The amount due was accessible [equal to a couple of days' work].

Jesus expresses his opinion through an analogy.

Rome had granted the administration of Palestine to monarchs, princes and tetrarchs. Subjects were obliged to pay taxes, excluding Roman citizens.

The young Rabbi states: just as those who possessed the legal citizenship of Rome were exempt from the tributes imposed on the Jews by their rulers, so the sons [in the communities of Mt, Christians Jews] had to be exempt from the taxes relating to the Temple.

But it was perhaps appropriate to express an attitude of respect about a legal obligation.

From the tone and composition of the text, however, it seems that this criterion of loyalty to institutions has been grafted onto a previous saying of Jesus, concerning total freedom towards the Sanctuary.

He intended to replace it in vital terms: with his Person and that of his own intimates. By wiping out his artificial and external mannerisms.

With regard to the specific Christology of the passage, it is known: the Lord provides and "pays" for His friends (v.27).

In fact, the acronym for «fish» in Greek [«ichthys»: Iēsous Christos Theou Yios Sōtēr] has the meaning of Jesus Messiah Son of God the Savior. Symbol of the Faith.

In this way, the authentic commitment of the sons will be to manifest a Face of God absolutely different from that widespread in the mentality of the ancient and Mesopotamian East.

In fact, the Father doesn’t sit in a Cloud crossed by lightnings; He doesn’t crave the title of «Great» which recalls an idea of tremendous strength, terrifying power, disruptive speed.

No, this is not the ‘precedence’ of the divine man and of the Most High. He offers redemption and pays tribute for everyone.

Of course, Salvation is not an extrinsic mechanism, only vicarious. Redemption is Heart, not a “dress”.

The «Son of Man» does not take standard actions; he educates us: he sharpens our personal awareness, and that of our condition.

He does not do this out of paternalism, nor to cover us with moralistic accusations: he allows us to love, bypassing formalism in our relationship with the Father.

His Presence as a Lamb who offers all of himself - even his skin - challenges humanity and guides it to reflect on its reality, precarious even in the heart.

Conscience of incompleteness that can activate what matters: the path of Exodus, convinced, involving - starting from the Center of oneself, rather than from legal externalities.

Without fulfillments that do not concern us.

[Monday 19th wk. in O.T.  August 12, 2024]

The Lord Jesus entered the passion, he decisively embarked upon the road to the cross; he spoke openly to his disciples of what was to happen to him in Jerusalem, and the words of the Prophet Hosea echoed in his words: “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days, he will rise” (Mk 9:31).

The Evangelist notes that the disciples “did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him” (v. 32). We too, in the face of death, cannot fail to experience the sentiments and thoughts dictated by our human condition. And we are always surprised and overcome by a God indeed, who draws so close to us that he does not even stop before the abyss of death, who rather passes through it, remaining in the tomb for two days. However, exactly here the mystery of the “third day” occurs. Christ takes on our mortal flesh completely that it may be invested with the glorious power of God, by the breath of the life-giving Spirit who transforms and regenerates it. This is the baptism of the passion (cf. Lk 12:50), which Jesus received for us and about which St Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans. The expression used by the Apostle — “baptized into his death” (Rom 6:3) — never ceases to surprise us, such is the precision with which he summarizes the breathtaking mystery. Christ’s death is the source of life, for into it God poured all of his love, as in an immense cascade, which makes us think of the image of Psalm 42[41]: “Deep calls to deep / at the thunder of your cataracts / all your waves and all your billows have gone over me” (v. 8). The abyss of death is filled by another abyss that is greater still, namely, the love of God, which is such that death no longer has power over Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 8:9), nor over those who are associated with him through faith and baptism: “If we have died with Christ”, says St Paul, “we believe that we shall also live with him” (Rom 6:8). This “living with Jesus” is the fulfilment of the hope prophesied by Hosea: “… and we will live in his presence” (6:2).

[Pope Benedict, homily 3 November 2011]

8. Redemption as a new creation

The Redeemer of the world! In him has been revealed in a new and more wonderful way the fundamental truth concerning creation to which the Book of Genesis gives witness when it repeats several times: "God saw that it was good"38. The good has its source in Wisdom and Love. In Jesus Christ the visible world which God created for man - the world that, when sin entered, "was subjected to futility" - recovers again its original link with the divine source of Wisdom and Love. Indeed, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son". As this link was broken in the man Adam, so in the Man Christ it was reforged. Are we of the twentieth century not convinced of the over poweringly eloquent words of the Apostle of the Gentiles concerning the "creation (that) has been groaning in travail together until now" and "waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God", the creation that "was subjected to futility"? Does not the previously unknown immense progress-which has taken place especially in the course of this century-in the field of man's dominion over the world itself reveal-to a previously unknown degree-that manifold subjection "to futility"? It is enough to recall certain phenomena, such as the threat of pollution of the natural environment in areas of rapid industrialization, or the armed conflicts continually breaking out over and over again, or the prospectives of self-destruction through the use of atomic, hydrogen, neutron and similar weapons, or the lack of respect for the life of the unborn. The world of the new age, the world of space flights, the world of the previously unattained conquests of science and technology-is it not also the world "groaning in travail" that "waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God"?

In its penetrating analysis of "the modern world", the Second Vatican Council reached that most important point of the visible world that is man, by penetrating like Christ the depth of human consciousness and by making contact with the inward mystery of man, which in Biblical and non-Biblical language is expressed by the word "heart". Christ, the Redeemer of the world, is the one who penetrated in a unique unrepeatable way into the mystery of man and entered his "heart". Rightly therefore does the Second Vatican Council teach: "The truth is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come (Rom 5:14), Christ the Lord. Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling". And the Council continues: "He who is the 'image of the invisible God' (Col 1:15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that is was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his Incarnation, he, the son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin", he, the Redeemer of man!

[Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis]

"Triumphalism in the Church," the Pope continued, "stops the Church. Triumphalism in us Christians stops Christians. A triumphalist Church is a Church half way there'. A Church that is content to be "well settled, with all the offices, everything in place, everything beautiful, efficient", but that denies the martyrs would be "a Church that only thinks of triumphs, of successes; that does not have that rule of Jesus: the rule of triumph through failure. Human failure, the failure of the cross. And this is a temptation that we all have'.

And in this regard, the Pope recalled an episode from his own life: "Once, I was in a dark moment of my spiritual life, and I was asking for a grace from the Lord. I went to preach the exercises to the nuns and on the last day they went to confession. An old nun came to confession, over eighty years old, but with clear eyes, really bright. She was a woman of God. Then at the end I saw her so much a woman of God that I said to her: 'Sister, as a penance pray for me, because I need a grace, eh? If you ask the Lord, He will surely give it to me'. She paused for a moment, as if praying, and told me this: 'Sure, the Lord will give you the grace, but make no mistake: in His divine way'. This did me so much good: to feel that the Lord always gives us what we ask for but He does it with His divine way". This way, the Pope explained, "involves the cross. Not out of masochism, no: out of love, out of love to the end".

[Pope Francis, homily st Martha 29 May 2013;

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/cotidie/2013/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20130529_trionfalismo-cristiano.pdf]

(Jn 6:41-51)

God does not attract with peremptory force or blackmail, but with invitation (v.44).

And sincere belief is activated by an initial testimony in oneself (v.44).

The Father does not let us become chronic. He acts within each one to reshape convictions, adhesions, projects.

Everything works in the direction of ourselves, not in an unnatural mode.

He acts present in each person in a way that is spontaneous and at the same time akin to individuating principles; more respectful of inclinations, real characteristics, energies.

This teaching (v.45) is internal: impersonated by Christ in the Word that does not distort anything - implicit in his Person and story.

Thus the gift of life is linked to assimilating and becoming One with that Food.

Bread that does not damage people, but convinces, supports, ferments and orients - in an unrepeatable way; each one by Name.

That “Manducated” kills conformity and extinction.

It possesses the virtue of reknitting the threads that distinguish the character of Person, the innate quality, vocational essence, propulsive capacity [Life of the Eternal].

The bread of the earth preserves life but does not update, does not ceaselessly regenerate us, nor does it open a way through death.

The Bread that reactualizes the ultimate gift of the Son, nourishes the existence of an indestructible quality that does not fade, because it is divine Gold of our spring being.

The prophets had announced that in the last times one would not know God by hearsay but by personal experience.

After the failure of the kings and the priestly class, women and men would be taught directly by the Lord.

The expression «Bread came down from Heaven» designates Jesus himself in relationship with the Father and [precisely] in his mission to bring Wisdom, and exuberant Life, to people.

Divine, limitless Life, which immediately pours into each one - so excluding the uncertainties or interpretations veiled by the shortcomings, by the “visual” defects of the mediators, which conversely would lead to collapse.

Presence that in the time of complexity also kindles in us the desire to be instructed by God-in-Person, guided by the inner Friend, and walked by regenerating insights, in his Spirit.

He inclines us to pay no heed to a nature that seeks and «murmurs» only for the banal "taste" of sustenance: «manna in the desert» (v.49); that is, interest, reputation, titles, trivialitiy of satisfactions.

«I am the Bread, the Living, the one who came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this Bread, he shall live the Life of the Eternal, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the full Life of the world» (v. 51).

The Spirit that internalises and actualises is the main Subject of even domestic, daily history of salvation. Making himself ours.

By evangelizing us and growing in Friendship [we «instructed by God» (v.45)] the nourishing action of the Master introduces our fermented flesh into the new Life.

The Son beside us changes our 'taste' and familiarises of Himself the same 'Nature'.

In this way, we, too, assimilated and identified with the Bread-Person made intimate, reveal Totality in act, living Eternity, the original Source.

To internalize and live the message:

How do you enter the gift of redemption through the Eucharist?

Have you ever felt "cut from the earth" because of your different Food from Heaven?

What were the opportunities to make the leap that perhaps you overlooked?

[19th  Sunday  in O.T.  B  (Jn 6:41-51)]