Today’s Gospel — taken from chapter four of St Luke — is the continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel. Once again we find ourselves in the Synagogue of Nazareth, the village where Jesus grew up, where every knew him and his family. Then, after a period of absence, he returned there in a new way: during the Sabbath liturgy he read a prophecy on the Messiah by Isaiah and announced its fulfilment, making it clear that this word referred to him, that Isaiah had spoken about him. The event puzzled the Nazarenes: on the one hand they “all spoke well of him and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Lk 4:22).

St Mark reported what many were saying: “Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him?” (6:2). On the other hand, however, his fellow villagers knew him too well: “He is one like us”, they say, “His claim can only be a presumption (cf. The Infancy Narratives, English edition, p. 3). “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Lk 4:22), as if to say “what can a carpenter from Nazareth aspire to?”.

Well-acquainted with this imperviousness which confirms the proverb: “no prophet is acceptable in his own country”, to the people in the synagogue Jesus addressed words that resonate like a provocation. He cited two miracles wrought by the great prophets Elijah and Elisha for men who were not Israelites in order to demonstrate that faith is sometimes stronger outside Israel. At this point there was a unanimous reaction. All the people got to their feet and drove him away; and they even tried to push him off a precipice. However, passing through the midst of the angry mob with supreme calmness he went away. At this point it comes naturally to wonder: why ever did Jesus want to stir up this antagonism? At the outset the people admired him and he might perhaps have been able to obtain a certain consensus.... But this is exactly the point: Jesus did not come to seek the agreement of men and women but rather — as he was to say to Pilate in the end — “to bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37). The true prophet does not obey others as he does God, and puts himself at the service of the truth, ready to pay in person. It is true that Jesus was a prophet of love, but love has a truth of its own. Indeed, love and truth are two names of the same reality, two names of God.

In today’s liturgy these words of St Paul also ring out: “Love is not... boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right” (1 Cor 13:43-6). Believing in God means giving up our own prejudices and accepting the actual face in which he revealed himself: Jesus of Nazareth the man. And this process also leads to recognizing him and to serving him in others.

On this path Mary’s attitude is enlightening. Who could be more closely acquainted than her with the humanity of Jesus? Yet she was never shocked by him as were his fellow Nazarenes. She cherished this mystery in her heart and was always and ever better able to accept it on the journey of faith, even to the night of the Cross and the full brilliance of the Resurrection. May Mary also always help us to continue faithfully and joyfully on this journey.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 3 February 2013]

7. In his activity as a teacher, which began in Nazareth and extended to Galilee and Judea up to the capital, Jerusalem, Jesus knows how to grasp and make the most of the abundant fruits present in the religious tradition of Israel. He penetrates it with new intelligence, brings out its vital values, and highlights its prophetic perspectives. He does not hesitate to denounce men's deviations from the designs of the God of the covenant.

In this way he works, within the one and the same divine revelation, the passage from the "old" to the "new", without abolishing the Law, but instead bringing it to its full fulfilment (cf. Mt 5:17). This is the thought with which the Letter to the Hebrews opens: "God, who had already spoken in ancient times many times and in various ways to the fathers through the prophets, has lately, in these days, spoken to us through his Son . . ." (Heb 1:1).

8. This transition from the 'old' to the 'new' characterises the entire teaching of the 'Prophet' of Nazareth. A particularly clear example is the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus says: "You have heard that it was said to the ancients: Do not kill . . . But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be brought into judgment' (Matthew 5: 21-22). "You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery; but I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27-28). "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy; but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors . . ." (Mt 5:43-44).

Teaching in this way, Jesus at the same time declares: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish, but to fulfil" (cf. Mt 5:17).

9. This "fulfilment" is a key-word that refers not only to the teaching of the truth revealed by God, but also to the whole history of Israel, that is, of the people whose son Jesus is. This extraordinary history, guided from the beginning by the powerful hand of the God of the covenant, finds its fulfilment in Jesus. The plan that the God of the covenant had inscribed in this history from the beginning, making it the history of salvation, tended towards the "fullness of time" (Gal 4:4), which is realised in Jesus Christ. The Prophet of Nazareth does not hesitate to speak of this from his very first speech in the synagogue of his city.

10. Particularly eloquent are the words of Jesus reported in the Gospel of John when he says to his opponents: "Abraham, your father, rejoiced in the hope of seeing my day . . .", and in the face of their disbelief: "Are you not yet fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?", Jesus confirms even more explicitly: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am" (John 8: 56-58). It is evident that Jesus affirms, not only that he is the fulfilment of God's salvific designs, inscribed in Israel's history since the time of Abraham, but that his existence precedes Abraham's time, to the point of identifying himself as "he who is" (Ex 3:14). But for this very reason he, Jesus Christ, is the fulfilment of Israel's history, because he "surpasses" this history with his mystery.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 4 February 1987]

In today’s liturgy, the Gospel recounts Jesus’ first sermon in his home town, Nazareth. The outcome is bitter: instead of receiving approval, Jesus finds incomprehension and even hostility (cf. Lk 4:21-30). His fellow villagers wanted miracles and prodigious signs rather than a word of truth. The Lord does not perform them and they reject him, because they say they already knew him as a child: he is Joseph’s son (cf. v. 22), and so on. Jesus therefore utters a phrase that has become proverbial: “No prophet is acceptable in his own country” (v. 24).

These words reveal that Jesus’ failure was not entirely unexpected. He knew his people, he knew the heart of his people, he knew the risk he was running. He took rejection into account. And, so, we may ask ourselves: but if it was like this, if he foresaw a failure, why did he go to his home town all the same? Why do good to people who are not willing to accept you? It is a question that we too often ask ourselves. But it is a question that helps us understand God better. Faced with our closures, he does not withdraw: he does not put brakes on his love . Faced with our closures, he goes forward. We see a reflection of this in parents who are aware of the ingratitude of their children, but do not stop loving them and doing good to them, because of this. God is the same, but at a much higher level. And today he invites us too to believe in good, to leave no stone unturned in doing good.

However, in what happens in Nazareth we also find something else. The hostility towards Jesus from his people provokes us: they were not welcoming — what about us? To verify this, let us look at the models of acceptance that Jesus proposes today, to us and to his fellow countrymen. They are two foreigners: a widow from Sarepta of Sidon and Naaman, the Syrian. Both of them welcomed prophets: the former Elijah, the latter, Elisha. But it was not an easy reception, it went through trials. The widow welcomed Elijah, despite the famine and although the prophet was persecuted (cf. 1 Kings 17:7-16). He was persecuted for political and religious reasons. Naaman, on the other hand, despite being a person of the highest order, accepted the request of the prophet Elisha, who led him to humble himself, to bathe seven times in a river (cf. 2 Kings 5:1-14), as if he were an ignorant child. The widow and Naaman, in short, accepted through willingness and humility . The way to welcome God is always to be willing, to welcome him and to be humble. Faith passes through here: willingness and humility. The widow and Naaman did not reject the ways of God and his prophets; they were docile, not rigid and closed.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus also goes the way of the prophets: he presents himself as we would not expect. He is not found by those who seek miracles — if we look for miracles, we will not find Jesus — by those who seek new sensations, intimate experiences, strange things; those who seek a faith made up of power and external signs. No, they will not find him. Instead, he is found only by those who accept his ways and his challenges, without complaint, without suspicion, without criticism and long faces. In other words, Jesus asks you to welcome him in the daily reality in which you live; in the Church of today, as it is; in those who are close to you every day; in the reality of those in need, in the problems of your family, in your parents, in your children, in grandparents, welcoming God there. He is there, inviting us to purify ourselves in the river of willingness and in many healthy baths of humility. It takes humility to encounter God, to allow ourselves to be encountered by him.

And are we welcoming or do we resemble his fellow countrymen, who believed they knew everything about him? “I studied theology, I took that course in catechesis… I know everything about Jesus!” Yes, like a fool! Don’t be foolish, you don’t know Jesus. Perhaps, after many years as believers, we think we know the Lord well, very often with our ideas and our judgments. The risk is that we become accustomed, we get used to Jesus. And in this way, how do we grow accustomed? By closing ourselves off, closing ourselves off to his newness, in the moment he knocks on your door and tells you something new, and wants to enter into you. We must stop being fixed in our positions. The Lord asks for an open mind and a simple heart. And when a person has an open mind, a simple heart, he or she has the capacity to be surprised, to be amazed. The Lord always surprises us: this is the beauty of the encounter with Jesus. May Our Lady, model of humility and willingness, show us the way to welcome Jesus.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 30 January 2022]

Conversion and Times

(Lk 13:1-9)

Conversion refers to a process that shakes the soul, due to an Encounter. A ‘meeting’ that opens to the knowledge of ourselves.

A dialogue that projects minds and actions onto reality and the Mystery, which ceaselessly refer to a new Exodus.

Even today, the swampy counterpart of the life of Faith wedges itself like a constant woodworm, and is symbolized by an arid confrontation, expressed in the absence of fruit on an unnecessarily leafy tree.

The ‘vineyard’ is an icon of the chosen people and the ‘fig tree’ of its central prosperity. Here evokes the Temple, in particular its liturgical nucleus: the Sanctuary.

The cult that took place in the sacred of ​​the vast area of ​​Mount Zion had to express the praise of a people who were constantly listening, called to a life of sharing and fraternity.

The delicious fruits that the Lord was waiting for should have been sweet and tender (like figs), but they were hard and inedible. The Call had been dropped on deaf ears.

The many and showy "leaves" of the most devout rite didn’t celebrate a life of welcome and understanding, rather tended to hide the bitter berries of a style in no way conforming to the divine plan.

We ask ourselves: how much time do we have available to amend and not regress, living fully the present?

Is the Father's governmental action punitive or only responsible and life-giving?

In the parable of the sterile fig tree we learn: the only condition that can change a history of infertility and squalor - as well as the danger of formalism - is the time still needed to assimilate the Word.

Forward process, linked to the unpredictable way in which the vital call of the Seed and the particular reaching out of its roots intertwine with the earth of the soul, then overflowing in relation to the events.

Appeal that never ceases, in the reverb of which is elaborated and strengthened the change of mentality that introduces into conviviality and into the plan of liberation for an alternative world: the Kingdom of God.

After the three years of the Son's public life, there is a ‘fourth year’ that extends to the history of the Church (vv. 7-9).

It does not want to conceal the luxuriance of life but to make it blossom, and without ceasing recalls a flourishing growth; for a feeling of Family with sweetest fruit, which is not satisfied with external practices.

As the encyclical Brothers All points out, the Lord still dreams of a «plan that would set great goals for the development of our entire human family» (n.16).

For this purpose «we need to think of ourselves more and more as a single family dwelling in a common home. Such care does not interest those economic powers that demand quick profits» (n.17).

The hasty logic - as well as the epidermal rush of the society of events - creates inequalities, not only in the commercial field.

In short, everything becomes an opportunity for the Eternal’s flowering and action ground, history that is truly ours: teaching of authentic theology and humanization - if the people’s story unfolds ‘on the way’.

The God of religion has his own claims and does not appear long-suffering. The Father of Jesus knows how to wait. He does not get angry, he does not give in to the frenzy of blow for blow. He is not disinterested, but not complain; nor take revenge.

He proposes solutions.

In doing so He will not cause irreparable trouble - indeed will astound us. For a new Spring, in which the fig tree gives its unrepeatable sugary, juicy and highly energetic Fruit - before the many leaves.

So that ‘fraternity’ does not «remain just another vague ideal» (n.109).

 [3rd Sunday in Lent (year C), March 23, 2025]

Conversion and Times

Lk 13:1-9 (1-17)

Conversion refers to a process that shakes the soul, because of an Encounter. An encounter that opens up knowledge of ourselves.

A dialogue that projects mind and actions onto reality and Mystery, which incessantly refer back to a new Exodus.

Even today, the swampy counterpart to the life of Faith wedges in like a constant woodworm, and is symbolised by an arid confrontation, expressed in the absence of fruit on a fruitless tree.

The vineyard is an icon of the Chosen People and the fig tree of its central prosperity. Here it evokes the Temple, in particular its liturgical core: the Sanctuary.

According to religious prejudices - of class, purity, ministry, progressive skimming - within strictly demarcated perimeters, homage was paid to the God of Israel.

The worship that took place in the sacred zone of the vast area of Mount Zion was meant to express the praise of a people in constant listening, called to a life of sharing and fraternity.

The delicious fruits that the Lord expected should have been sweet and tender (like figs), instead they were hard and inedible. His call had been left to fall on deaf ears.

The many and conspicuous "leaves" of the devout ritual did not celebrate a life of acceptance and understanding, but rather tended precisely to hide the bitter berries of a style that did not conform to the divine plan at all.

We ask ourselves: how much time do we have to amend and not regress, living fully in the present? Is the Father's governing action punitive or only responsible and life-giving?

In the parable of the barren fig tree we learn: the only condition that can change a history of infertility and squalor - as well as the danger of formalism - is the time still needed to assimilate the Word.

Forward process, linked to the unpredictable manner in which the vital Call of the Seed and the particular outreach of its roots intertwines with the soil of the soul, then overflows in relation to events.

A call that does not cease; in whose reverberation is elaborated and strengthened the change of mentality that ushers in the reciprocal hospitable nature of conviviality and the design of liberation for an alternative world: the Kingdom of God.

Now in the hands of a useless and corrupt caste that had allowed the vital relationship to die out, the threads of the ignored design of Salvation and Justice (in the sense, first and foremost, of authentic God-man positions and just relationships) are re-knotted by the intensity of the Father-Son relationship.

After the three years of public life, there is a "fourth year" that extends to the history of the Church (vv.7-9).

It is not meant to conceal the blossoming of life, but to make it blossom, and it ceaselessly calls for a flourishing growth; for a feeling of Family with the sweetest fruit, which is not satisfied with external practices.

In order to overcome conditioning, suspicions, blockages, failures, there is a need to breathe: it is a matter of treading a long path of exploration.

There are no shortcuts, no useful U-turns according to the code of official authorities, perennially committed to attenuating and homologating charismatic peaks.

In fact, Jesus had invited the crowds to have independent thinking and judgement (Lk 12:57: "Now why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?").

Woe betide those who allow themselves to be subjugated, accepting omertà out of calculation or fear. What is at stake is our dignity and the missionary wealth to which God calls.

This is why the authorities considered Jesus as a Galilean: subversive and rebellious.

He is subjected to another intimidation by proxies of the religious leaders (Lk 13:1). We seem to be witnessing a rehearsal of prevarications with which we may be familiar.

As the encyclical Brothers All points out, the Lord still dreams of a project "with great goals, for the development of all mankind (No.16)".

For this purpose "we need to constitute ourselves into a 'we' that inhabits the Common House. Such care is of no interest to the economic powers that need quick revenues" (n.17).

The hasty logic - as well as the epidermic haste of the society of events - creates inequalities, not only in the mercantile field.

In short, everything becomes an opportunity for the Eternal to flourish and a field of action for the Eternal, a history that is truly ours: a magisterium of authentic theology and humanisation - if the story of the people unfolds on the way.

In the processes that trigger a history of redemption according to evangelical logic, the memory of the past does not alienate but interpellates: it does not banally provide inert, indefectible criteria for judging the present and obtaining repercussions or predictive capacity for the future.

The creed of philosophical-religious idealism may be a cocoon in which to lull oneself, but from the attentive and propulsive Faith springs a life of love that is also unpredictable, capable of inexplicable recoveries: it demands personal judgement and new determination in the situation.

It is harmful to dust off and readjust old things or one-sided dreams.

It is necessary to have open eyes and at the same time give time, so that we overcome the fatalisms of archaic monotheism, the sentiments that confuse intimist emotionalism with passion for the things of God, the reductionist and schematic fundamentalisms, the illusions of being already on the path of conversion.

The God of ancient religion has his demands and does not appear long-winded. The Father of Jesus knows how to wait. He tolerates both stubbornness and incautious acceleration.

He is not irritated, he does not give in to the frenzy of blow after blow. He is not disinterested, but he does not complain; nor does he take revenge.

It proposes solutions.

It reiterates occasions that would melt the hard temper of our idols - for an evolution towards a renewed masterpiece of celestial Patience.

It has the style of the mother or, at any rate, of the parent - close relative - who by dint of caresses and kisses convinces the wayward child to eat the food that will make him grow (calmly) and thus surpass himself.

In this way he does not cause irreparable trouble - on the contrary, he will astound us.

For a new Spring, in which the fig tree gives its unrepeatable sugary fruit [never already dry or dried] juicy and highly energetic - before the many leaves.

So that fraternity does not remain 'at best a romantic expression' (FT, 109).

To internalise and live the message:

How do you safeguard community life and your transpositions of Faith in Christ? What is the point of homologation in satisfaction, and where do you place your Preciousness?

Jesus and curved humanity

Theatrics and neutrality

(Lk 13:10-17)

The passion for full existence and things would like to lead us who knows where, but there is sometimes an external force that holds us back. A dark power that prevents us from even discovering our true nature.

The opinion of others, doctrines, customs or common ideas old and new stand in the way of the life that calls us.

And in the meantime, the perception that we are failing to walk the right path causes suffering, guilt and blockage.

Those who then accuse us... take advantage of the fear of having to pay the price of (character and vocational) freedom, for the eventual "errors" that one runs the risk of making by staying off the prescribed tracks.

All this - especially in religions without the leap of Faith - even should it seem that by walking the paths that belong to us, the risks could bring us joy, greater completeness, and fulfilment.

As always, Jesus makes Himself present in the "synagogue" not to make codified prayers: He is among His people to "instruct" (v.10).

In particular, he teaches that the Father is not in conflict with his subjects, rather he supports all his children, and gives a different posture from that of the 'animal world' (to which normal beliefs could perhaps reduce us).

At that time, no woman could participate directly in a liturgy, but in the Gospels the female figures are parable of the people themselves (in Hebrew, the term Israel is feminine).

Luke stages a woman to allude also to all the oppressed figures, to whom the praying community does not offer any comfort, nor does it grant any concrete emancipatory action.

People subjected to the 'cultural' paradigm of their particular environment and to the conditioning power of family tradition (which then transmitted a paradigmatic and conformist spirituality).

People subjected in everything to the head of the family, subservient to political power, subservient even to the fundamentalism of religious authorities. A humiliating, even atrocious panorama, bestial in fact.

In the place of worship, the Master (who in reality is forcefully educating his own) finds a humanity and a panorama of minima still harassed by religious obsession - therefore folded in on themselves, exhausted, unable to lift their heads.

The spirit of weakness that that very environment inoculated in the unwell made the faithful in the assembly (or the habituals in it) totally passive.

An existence - everyone's - hunched over, dragged along at the worst, without horizons.

Christ's action extracts from the habituated crowd, free from conformism and massification; it puts the faltering 'woman' back on her feet, who takes to praising God seriously, joyfully, immediately (vv.12-13).

She was a 'participant' in the ritual and always in the midst of the assembled people, but before personally meeting the Lord she did not glorify the Father in a real way - nor did she honour her own existence.

No joyful expressions of healing from the religious leaders - accustomed to inoculating a soporific atmosphere - only condemnation. Illustrious and distant.

Individualistic power-brokers, incapable of closeness. This was also due to various circle, doctrinal, supremacist and institutional interests.

Then - in the common idea - it seemed that in legalistic or rubric terms the sanctification of the day dedicated to the Lord excluded any involvement, and good works!

In addition to this unhealthy belief, even touching a wounded 'flesh' was imagined to make one impure!

In short, the spirit of the commandment imposing Sabbath rest (historically born to protect vast social, cultic, identity needs) had been completely manipulated and overturned.

The logic of the young Rabbi is opposed to protocol: only the neglect of the marginal and enslaved dishonours God.

The only non-negotiable principle is the good of the real woman and man: this is the only key to interpreting the Gospels.

And the rite must celebrate precisely the life of welcome and sharing, of happiness, personalisation, care, love.

The rest is for Jesus an unbearable comedy, from which his church leaders must keep away: 'Theatrics' (v.15) would call them even today - otherwise - our Lord.

We are worth far more than oxen and donkeys (vv.15-16). The relationship with God is celebration, healing, salvation: all concrete - the result of choice, even social.

And finally, even the new Magisterium breaks away from the previous, often diplomatic and neutral mentality:

"Jesus' conclusion is a request: Go and do likewise (Lk 10:37). That is to say, it challenges us to put aside all differences and, in the face of suffering, to be close to everyone. Therefore, I no longer say that I have 'neighbours' to help, but that I feel called to become a neighbour of others" (Fratelli Tutti, n.81).

Spirituality is not empty.

Exceptional Faith, Burning Conversion

(Ex 3:2-4)

Conversion in the biblical sense is not turning back, but entering within oneself so as not to alienate oneself, and rediscovering one's root in order to know how to intervene, releasing the blaze of one's essential Relationship.

Conversion does not have to do with the disinterested tacticism of those who close themselves off from the world, avoiding getting involved until events have a negative impact on their own interests.

But how to take the measure of reality, how to understand it? How to understand oneself? And from where to draw guidance, wisdom and strength to propose wise solutions and effective action?

Moses is an outsider because he is hasty. His impulsive actions forced him to flee into the desert. There he makes more messes, again because of his hot temper. So he decides to calm down and settle down.

But the solution is not to meddle on behalf of others, forcibly choosing a quiet life. That fire of his that burns in his chest and mind is not extinguished; even dormant, he always carries it with him.

Only God understands that it is precisely his dark side and his irascible charge - like no other energy - that can make him the protagonist of an absurd design, in favour of the people, that will make him tread impervious situations and territories.

A risky task, which will force him to bring out his grit, drives, conviction and every resource, even those that are not so virtuous. A mission uniquely his, impossible for other, more balanced and calm souls.

How to explain the passion for the freedom of the humiliated? We find it within us, like a flame that burns and gives no respite. It rises spontaneously, despite prudent attempts to stifle it.

For his crazy redemptive designs, God needs someone exactly like us, just as we are. With our immense unexpressed resources, concealed even behind our blood-spots.

Qualities that arise spontaneously and have their own path to conversion, but that sooner or later have to come out as they are. They express ourselves deeply, and the call of the Father.

Various conditioning can create misperceptions of our personal uniqueness; likewise, of its development and destination.

The great risk is to spend our lives dissipating our character identity in search of induced illusions and conditioned reflections: of what we are not and do not even want.

Not only distractions, but also too much reasoning can lead us astray from the home that is really ours.

Continuing to insist on what damages the development of the soul and its full flowering, makes it indecisive or cunning and stubborn - especially if suggestible and fearful, or even receptive and helpless.

Our founding Eros comes into play when it realises that reality or its (defined) cultural paradigm can lead us astray.

The Vocation then manifests itself to the personal vision in a kind of energetic, reserved and unique Image, which makes us think in dreams, acts as a guide and drags us no one knows why or where.

The women and men who experience this inner fire that is not extinguished are not introduced into a world that only wants to endure, everything already chiselled and that knows its destination.

The Father's Flame does not express itself through artifices to be recited: it wants to recover and bring home all its resources, our essence and its jewels (to be exalted instead of hidden).

Jewels all to be extracted from the world of careless and locked-up certainties. Jewels - not infrequently concealed behind sides and propensities that (to the eye worn out by clichés) appear obscure.

Often it is precisely our side that is unknown to the schemes that is the spark that urges and acts as therapy to the sick soul, takes it by the hand and with due energy becomes a guide to relevant self-discovery - and great service to others.

The burning bush in the flesh - divine revelation - is kindled so that we realise the Dream of our own dreams. Not so that the soul becomes more and more equal and bound, or fundamentalist.

And only our Torch-Core-which-doesn't-consume-itself continuously in action, can prevent those who are born revolutionaries of the spirit, from then (but also quickly) surviving as armchair.

It happens in the banality of ideologies as in the conformism of religions, but it cannot happen in the sphere of the life of Faith.

Because the dance is not conducted by controlling extraneousness: aims, intentions, ideas, projects or codes... but by passionate and pulsive powers, which every day question us about the tide coming in.

Providence acts as director, wooing and mysteriously directing unrepeatable strategies, which plough through history attracting and dragging, unblocking mechanisms and empowering energies - even causing us to change, reshape or accentuate characters.We must surrender to them, not out of need, duty or calculation, nor just to understand something more, but to enjoy their spiritual Light and rays of Love, both near and far, creative of the inner and genius forces around us.

The Flame returns to spur us on to rekindle the personal balm of instinctiveness, the possibilities of fulfilment of our nature.

The absurd desire that explodes within wants to expand the possibilities of sap, both of the tree and of the roots themselves, to make us become well-rounded persons.

Thus we will no longer try to resemble our models, because the principle of such transmutation bursting out of the placid and conventional scenario has re-proposed the reason why we are in the world. [Our life-saving task... or the barrenness of models... Resetting and surprising our nostalgic and dead side... or the dark evil of living - and exhausting myself for a wisdom that has no more than Wisdom).

Once the radiance and beauty of the Torch is extinguished, its energetic virtue on our flesh fades, dampening the soul's enthusiasm - and extinguishing action (as in a position of starvation).

The passionate state is the force of practical thought and intellect. It makes our identity soar and has significant repercussions on others; it is the custodian of independence. And it integrates us, overcoming the sense of imperfection (or existential emptiness).

The intelligent Primordial Energy recognises our essence and brings the soul from external events back to the Core: from vicissitudes, things and wounds, to our innermost and richest being.

It knows that from the stimulus of such a source centre - and character bond of origin - will spring forth astounding events, unknown propensities, magic of unforeseen happenings. A new Creation.

From this House of new life and different hymns, a whole world of relationships will emanate... new commitments, brilliant insights and practical aptitudes, weaving the magic of the bride-matched soul.

It is this Source that takes over again, when it realises that we are not fulfilled, or that we feel betrayed by it - that is to say, to overcome fears, a sense of desolation, and bitter abandonments. Like a power that calls us back to ourselves, to our unexpressed talents, to the energy of the gaze that grasps the meaning of a story, and the genius of our territory or time. And it crosses them, making us lean out.

It becomes the daily compass of life and transformation. But it badly bears the interference of external judgements, which do not dwell deep inside but contribute to the atmosphere that circulates around it.

Like a force that happens, an energy that cannot be directed or explained by a universe of ready-made meanings, planned emotions and symbols, or manipulated into submission.

Ready to rise again as, when and why we do not expect, only to regenerate and make exponential our unusual, autonomous seed. As it is: ascetic effort would yield poor results.

The Hidden Source expresses itself in events imbued with the future, soaked in an atmosphere of Presence, of a whole side of our personality and not just some offshoot of its social sense (a nomenclature).

Roots manifest themselves in actions that contain as yet unexpressed, but strongly potential and affectively vital knowledge. They solve problems by acting in their own way.

Precisely what we do not yet know about ourselves - attitudes, desires - can be the secret, the spring of our blossoming. A discovery that springs up innately, not a taught and recognised path.

The true measure is deeper. One gets lost in trivialities, if one does not discover the personal seed - and assumes one already knows the direction: what to love, how to say and do according to instructions.

On the contrary, the world of acquired knowledge is often the enemy of the hidden process, which keeps wanting to carry out its theme and repudiating what it does not want to absorb, because it would counteract it.

And that is the whole game: not to fade, but to sense attitudes and let them be, even contradictory. And dance without placing them, identifying them, lining them up according to custom or ideal - thus intoxicating them.

The peculiar characteristic has the flavour of the Eternal. It incessantly gives birth to a renewed gaze, which is formed spontaneously, along the way. Preparing for the New, which does not bear expectations.

Hence, the unforeseen spark of the heart (which never matches) cannot be humiliated, threatened, shattered, removed or alienated: it is our consistent Inclination, which releases a clear radiance of Oneness.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

The passage of Luke's Gospel that is proclaimed on this Third Sunday of Lent relates Jesus' comments on two events of his time. The first: the uprising of some Galileans, which Pilate repressed with bloodshed. The second: the fall of the tower of Jerusalem, which claimed 18 victims. Two very distinct, tragic events: one caused by man, the other accidental. 

According to the mentality of the time, people were inclined to think that the disgrace which struck the victims was due to some grave fault of their own. Jesus instead says: "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans.... Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem?" (Lk 13: 2, 4). And in both cases he concludes: "I tell you, No: but unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (13: 3, 5). 

This, then, is the point to which Jesus wants to bring his listeners: the necessity for conversion. He does not propose it in legalistic terms, but rather in realistic ones, as the only adequate response to the events that place human certainties in crisis. 

In the face of certain disgraces, he warns, it does no good to blame the victims. Rather, true wisdom allows one to question the precariousness of existence and to acquire an attitude of responsibility: to do penance and to improve our lives. 

This is wisdom, this is the most effective response to evil on every level: interpersonal, social and international. 

Christ invites us to respond to evil, first of all, with a serious examination of conscience and the commitment to purify our lives. Otherwise, he says, we will perish, we will all perish in the same way. 

In effect, people and societies that live without ever questioning themselves have ruin as their only final destination. Conversion, on the other hand, while not preserving one from problems and misfortunes, allows one to face them in a different "way". 

First of all, it helps to prevent evil, disengaging some of its threats. And in any case, it allows one to overcome evil with good: if not always on a factual level, which sometimes is independent of our will, certainly on a spiritual level. 

In summary: conversion overcomes the root of evil, which is sin, even if it cannot always avoid its consequences. 

Let us pray to Mary Most Holy, who accompanies and sustains us on our Lenten journey, so that she may help every Christian to rediscover the greatness, I would say, the beauty, of conversion.

May she help us understand that doing penance and correcting one's conduct is not simply moralism, but the most effective way to change oneself and society for the better. 

An adage expresses it well: to light a candle is worth more than to curse the darkness.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 11 March 2007]

In the eschatological fulfillment mercy will be revealed as love, while in the temporal phase, in human history, which is at the same time the history of sin and death, love must be revealed above all as mercy and must also be actualized as mercy. Christ's messianic program, the program of mercy, becomes the program of His people, the program of the Church. At its very center there is always the cross, for it is in the cross that the revelation of merciful love attains its culmination. Until "the former things pass away," the cross will remain the point of reference for other words too of the Revelation of John: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me." In a special way, God also reveals His mercy when He invites man to have "mercy" on His only Son, the crucified one. 

Christ, precisely as the crucified one, is the Word that does not pass away, and He is the one who stands at the door and knocks at the heart of every man, without restricting his freedom, but instead seeking to draw from this very freedom love, which is not only an act of solidarity with the suffering Son of man, but also a kind of "mercy" shown by each one of us to the Son of the eternal Father. In the whole of this messianic program of Christ, in the whole revelation of mercy through the cross, could man's dignity be more highly respected and ennobled, for, in obtaining mercy, He is in a sense the one who at the same time "shows mercy"?

[Pope John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia n.8]

Unfortunately, every day the press reports bad news: homicides, accidents, catastrophes.... In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus refers to two tragic events which had caused a stir: a cruel suppression carried out by Roman soldiers in the temple, and the collapse of the tower of Siloam in Jerusalem, which resulted in 18 deaths (cf. Lk 13:1-5).

Jesus is aware of the superstitious mentality of his listeners and he knows that they misinterpreted that type of event. In fact, they thought that, if those people died in such a cruel way it was a sign that God was punishing them for some grave sin they had committed, as if to say “they deserved it”. Instead, the fact that they were saved from such a disgrace made them feel “good about themselves”. They “deserved it”; “I’m fine”.

Jesus clearly rejects this outlook, because God does not allow tragedies in order to punish sins, and he affirms that those poor victims were no worse than others. Instead, he invites his listeners to draw from these sad events a lesson that applies to everyone, because we are all sinners; in fact, he said to those who questioned him, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (v. 3).

Today too, seeing certain misfortunes and sorrowful events, we can be tempted to “unload” the responsibility onto the victims, or even onto God himself. But the Gospel invites us to reflect: What idea do we have of God? Are we truly convinced that God is like that, or isn’t that just our projection, a god made to “our image and likeness”?

Jesus, on the contrary, invites us to change our heart, to make a radical about-face on the path of our lives, to abandon compromises with evil — and this is something we all do, compromises with evil, hypocrisy.... I think that nearly all of us has a little hypocrisy — in order to decidedly take up the path of the Gospel. But again there is the temptation to justify ourselves. What should we convert from? Aren’t we basically good people? — How many times have we thought this: “But after all I am a good man, I’m a good woman”... isn’t that true? “Am I not a believer and even quite a churchgoer?” And we believe that this way we are justified.

Unfortunately, each of us strongly resembles the tree that, over many years, has repeatedly shown that it’s infertile. But, fortunately for us, Jesus is like a farmer who, with limitless patience, still obtains a concession for the fruitless vine. “Let it alone this year” — he said to the owner — “we shall see if it bears fruit next year” (cf. v. 9).

A “year” of grace: the period of Christ’s ministry, the time of the Church before his glorious return, an interval of our life, marked by a certain number of Lenten seasons, which are offered to us as occasions of repentance and salvation, the duration of a Jubilee Year of Mercy. The invincible patience of Jesus! Have you thought about the patience of God? Have you ever thought as well of his limitless concern for sinners? How it should lead us to impatience with ourselves! It’s never too late to convert, never. God’s patience awaits us until the last moment.

Remember that little story from St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, when she prayed for that man who was condemned to death, a criminal, who did not want to receive the comfort of the Church. He rejected the priest, he didn’t want [forgiveness], he wanted to die like that. And she prayed in the convent, and when, at the moment of being executed, the man turned to the priest, took the Crucifix and kissed it. The patience of God! He does the same with us, with all of us. How many times, we don’t know — we’ll know in heaven — but how many times we are there, there ... [about to fall off the edge] and the Lord saves us. He saves us because he has great patience with us. And this is his mercy. It’s never too late to convert, but it’s urgent. Now is the time! Let us begin today.

May the Virgin Mary sustain us, so that we can open our hearts to the grace of God, to his mercy; and may she help us to never judge others, but rather to allow ourselves to be struck by daily misfortunes and to make a serious examination of our consciences and to repent.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 28 February 2016]

(Lk 15:1-3.11-32)

Love is a Feast, not an exchange of favors. So we aren’t marked for life, because the Father knows that our paradoxical escapes are dictated by a need (or legitimate fixation): to breathe.

And we must be proud of ourselves.

Inside our “Home” there is no freedom, because older brothers are sometimes unbearable.

They impose performance, they understand everything, and check for any comma; they imagine that everyone should receive a salary according to merit, rhythm, ability, effort, overtime hours, and «Yessir».

Grim about everything, they whine only because they imagine that one has to ask permission from authority even to rejoice in life and make noise for free. Their “duty and obey” kills Tenderness.

The Father, on the other hand, prevents us from feeling degraded, so He does not want to listen to the list of transgressions that the "pure" doesn’t know but imagines and foolishly spells out, because he represses them inside and in secret cultivates [identifying them with pleasure!].

He does not want us to make the mistake that ruins the whole of life and not just a few stretches of the path: to feel like wage earners. Thus He educates to let good prevail over evil, without demeaning anyone.

Everywhere we find a master who exploits. And even if we only return Home out of calculation, God prevents us from getting down on our knees.

We recite the Lord's Prayer standing: with Him we are always valiant face to face, and He likes «symphonies and choirs».

Tao Tê Ching (x) says: «Preserve the One by abiding in the two souls: are you capable of not making them separate?».

Contradiction inhabits each of us and the merciful Father doesn’t call anyone to wear inner or outer straitjackets according to perfection.

He doesn’t intend to absorb the life even of our subtleties and nuances, nor to reduce the coexistence of faces.

He knows that the evolution of each is combined with a varied experiential language, capable at its time of combining ancient wealth, personal inclinations, even momentary ones, and unexpected novelties.

If we deny the soul’s universe and the multitude of its antinomies, idioms, and co-present characters - like the two sons both contradictory but ultimately complementary - we would never have all the prospects for a growth in life and for the evolution in expressive strength of the Faith.

In the Artwork of the Spirit, Richness’ Opportunities for all, and... no one humiliated.

Everyone now free. How wonderful, such a monstrance! A living Body of Christ that smells of Sharing!

This is the beautiful and royal awareness that smoothes out and makes the content of the Announcement credible (vv.1-2).

Henceforth, the distinction ‘believers and non-believers’ will be much deeper than between the pure and the impure: a whole different caliber - and the beginning of a life as saved people.

Christ also calls, welcomes and redeems the discombobulated son and the precise one (in us), i.e. the more rubricistic - or worn-out - side of our personality.

Even our unbearable or rightly hated character (the rigid one and the distracted one).

He will even make them flourish: they will become indispensable and winning aspects of the future testimony.

Tao Tê Ching [xlv] says: «Great straightness is like sinuosity, great skill is like ineptitude, great eloquence is like stammering».

To internalize and live the message:

When do I take myself hypocritical and close-hearted? When do I realize instead of being the protagonist of what the Father shares?

[Saturday 2nd wk. in Lent, March 22, 2025]