XXXIII Sunday in Ordinary Time C [16 November 2025]

First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Malachi (3:19-20a)

When Malachi wrote these words around 450 BC, the people were discouraged: faith seemed to be dying out, even among the priests of Jerusalem, who now celebrated worship in a superficial manner. Everyone asked themselves: 'What is God doing? Has he forgotten us? Life is unfair! The wicked succeed in everything, so what is the point of being the chosen people and observing the commandments? Where is God's justice?" The prophet then fulfils his task: to reawaken faith and inner energy. He rebukes priests and lay people, but above all he proclaims that God is just and that his plan of justice is advancing irresistibly. "Behold, the day of the Lord is coming": history is not a repeating cycle, but is moving towards fulfilment. For those who believe, this is a truth of faith: the day of the Lord is coming. Depending on the image that each person has of God, this coming can be frightening or arouse ardent expectation. But for those who recognise that God is Father, the day of the Lord is good news, a day of love and light. Malachi uses the image of the sun: "Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, burning like an oven." This is not a threat! At the beginning of the book, God says, "I love you" (Malachi 1:2) and "I am Father" (Malachi 1:6). The "furnace" is not punishment, but a symbol of God's burning love. Just as the disciples of Emmaus felt their hearts burning within them, so those who encounter God are enveloped in the warmth of his love. The 'sun of righteousness' is therefore a fire of love: on the day we encounter God, we will be immersed in this burning ocean of mercy. God cannot help but love, especially all that is poor, naked and defenceless. This is the very meaning of mercy: a heart that bends over misery. Malachi also speaks of judgement. The sun, in fact, can burn or heal: it is ambivalent. In the same way, the 'Sun of God' reveals everything, illuminating without leaving any shadows: no lie or hypocrisy can hide from its light. God's judgement is not destruction, but revelation and purification. The sun will 'burn' the arrogant and the wicked, but it will 'heal' those who fear his name. Arrogance and closed hearts will be consumed like straw; humility and faith will be transfigured. Pride and humility, selfishness and love coexist in each of us. God's judgement will take place within us: what is 'straw' will burn, what is 'good seed' will sprout in God's sun. It will be a process of inner purification, until the image and likeness of God shines within us. Malachi also uses two other images: that of the smelter, who purifies gold not to destroy it, but to make it shine in all its beauty; and that of the bleacher, who does not ruin the garment, but makes it shine. Thus, God's judgement is a work of light: everything that is love, service and mercy will be exalted; everything that is not love will disappear. In the end, only what reflects the face of God will remain. The historical context helps us to understand this text: Israel is experiencing a crisis of faith and hope after the exile; the priests are lukewarm and the people are disillusioned. The prophet's message: God is neither absent nor unjust. His 'day' will come: it is the moment when his justice and love will be fully manifested. The central image is the Sun of Justice, symbol of God's purifying love. Like the sun, divine love burns and heals, consumes evil and makes good flourish. In each of us, God does not condemn, but transforms everything into salvation by discerning what glorifies love and dissolves pride. Fire, the sun, the smelter and the bleacher indicate the purification that leads to the original beauty of man created in the image of God. Finally, there is nothing to fear: for those who believe, the day of the Lord reveals love. "The sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings" (Malachi 3:20).

Responsorial Psalm (97/98:5-6, 7-8, 9)

This psalm transports us ideally to the end of time, when all creation, renewed, joyfully acclaims the coming of the Kingdom of God. The text speaks of the sea and its riches, the world and its inhabitants, the rivers and the mountains: all creation is involved. St Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians (1:9-10), reminds us that this is God's eternal plan: 'to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, Christ'. God wants to reunite everything, to create full communion between the cosmos and creatures, to establish universal harmony. In the psalm, this harmony is already sung as accomplished: the sea roars, the rivers clap their hands, the mountains rejoice. It is God's dream, already announced by the prophet Isaiah (11:6-9): 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid... no one shall do evil or destruction on all my holy mountain'. But the reality is very different: man knows the dangers of the sea, conflicts with nature and with his fellow men. Creation is marked by struggle and disharmony. However, biblical faith knows that the day will come when the dream will become reality, because it is God's own plan. The role of prophets, such as Isaiah, is to revive the hope of this messianic Kingdom of justice and faithfulness. The Psalms also tirelessly repeat the reasons for this hope: Psalm 97(98) sings of the Kingdom of God as the restoration of order and universal peace. After so many unjust kings, a Kingdom of justice and righteousness is awaited. The people sing as if everything were already accomplished: "Sing hymns to the Lord who comes to judge the earth... and the peoples with righteousness." At the beginning of the psalm, the wonders of the past are recalled—the exodus from Egypt, God's faithfulness in the history of Israel—but now it is proclaimed that God is coming: his Kingdom is certain, even if not yet fully visible. The experience of the past becomes a guarantee of the future: God has already shown his faithfulness, and this allows the believer to joyfully anticipate the coming of the Kingdom. As Psalm 89(90) says: "A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday." And Saint Peter (2 Pt 3:8-9) reminds us that God does not delay his promise, but waits for the conversion of all. This psalm therefore echoes the promises of the prophet Malachi: "The sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings" (Mal 3:20). The singers of this psalm are the poor of the Lord, those who await the coming of Christ as light and warmth. Once it was only Israel that sang: "Acclaim the Lord, all the earth, acclaim your king!" But in the last days, all creation will join in this song of victory, no longer just the chosen people. In Hebrew, the verb "to acclaim" evokes the cry of triumph of the victor on the battlefield ("teru'ah"). But in the new world, this cry will no longer be one of war, but of joy and salvation, because — as Isaiah says (51:8): "My righteousness shall endure forever, my salvation from generation to generation." Jesus teaches us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come," which is the fulfilment of God's eternal dream: universal reconciliation and communion, in which all creation will sing in unison the justice and peace of its Lord.

Second Reading from the Second Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians (3:7-12)

Saint Paul writes: "If anyone does not want to work, let him not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Today, this phrase cannot be repeated literally, because it does not refer to the unemployed of good will of our time, but to a completely different situation. Paul is not talking about those who cannot work, but those who do not want to work, taking advantage of the expectation of the imminent coming of the Lord to live in idleness. In Paul's world, there was no shortage of work. When he arrived in Corinth, he easily found employment with Priscilla and Aquila, who were in the same trade as him: tentmakers (Acts 18:1-3). His manual labour, weaving goat hair cloth, a skill he had learned in Tarsus in Cilicia, was tiring and not very profitable, but it allowed him not to be a burden to anyone: 'In toil and hardship, night and day we worked so as not to be a burden to anyone' (2 Thessalonians 3:8). This continuous work, supported also by the financial help of the Philippians, became for Paul a living testimony against the idleness of those who, convinced of the imminent return of Christ, had abandoned all commitment. His phrase 'if anyone does not want to work, let him not eat' is not a personal invention, but a common rabbinical saying, an expression of ancient wisdom that combined faith and concrete responsibility. The first reason Paul gives is respect for others: not taking advantage of the community, not living at the expense of others. Faith in the coming of the Kingdom must not become a pretext for passivity. On the contrary, waiting for the Kingdom translates into active and supportive commitment: Christians collaborate in the construction of the new world with their own hands, their own intelligence, their own dedication. Paul implicitly recalls the mandate of Genesis: 'Subdue the earth and subjugate it' (Gen 1:28), which does not mean exploiting it, but taking part in God's plan, transforming the earth into a place of justice and love, a foretaste of his Kingdom. The Kingdom is not born outside the world, but grows within history, through the collaboration of human beings. As Father Aimé Duval sings: "Your heaven will be made on earth with your arms." And as Khalil Gibran writes in The Prophet: "When you work, you realise a part of the dream of the earth... Work is love made visible." In this perspective, every gesture of love, care and service, even if unpaid, is a participation in the building of the Kingdom of God. To work, to create, to serve, is to collaborate with the Creator. Saint Peter reminds us: “With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day... He is not slow in keeping his promise, but he is patient, wanting everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:8-9). This means that the time of waiting is not empty, but a time entrusted to our responsibility. Every act of justice, every good work, every gesture of love hastens the coming of the Kingdom. Therefore, the text concludes, if we truly desire the Kingdom of God to come sooner, we have not a minute to lose. Here is a small spiritual summary: Idleness is not simply a lack of work, but a renunciation of collaboration with God. Work, in whatever form, is part of the divine dream: to make the earth a place of communion and justice. Waiting for the Kingdom does not mean escaping from the world, but committing ourselves to transforming it. Every gesture of love is a stone laid for the Kingdom to come. Those who work with a pure heart hasten the dawn of the 'Sun of Justice' promised by the prophets.

From the Gospel according to Luke (21:5-19)

'Not a hair of your head will be lost.' This is prophetic language, not literal. We see every day that hair is indeed lost! This shows that Jesus' words are not to be taken literally, but as symbolic language. Jesus, like the prophets before him, does not make predictions about the future: he preaches. He does not announce chronicles of events, but keys of faith to interpret history. His discourse on the end of the Temple should also be understood in this way: it is not a horoscope of the apocalypse, but a teaching on how to live the present with faith, especially when everything seems to be falling apart. The message is clear: 'Whatever happens... do not be afraid!' Jesus invites us not to base our lives on what is passing. The Temple of Jerusalem, restored by Herod and covered with gold, was splendid, but destined to collapse. Every earthly reality, even the most sacred or solid, is temporary. True stability does not lie in stones, but in God. Jesus does not offer details about the 'when' or 'how' of the Kingdom; he shifts the question: 'Be careful not to be deceived...'. We do not need to know the calendar of the future, but to live the present in faithfulness. Jesus warns his disciples: "Before all this, they will persecute you, they will drag you before kings and governors because of my Name." Luke, who writes after years of persecution, knows well how true this is: from Stephen to James, from Peter to Paul, to many others. But even in persecution, Jesus promises: "I will give you a word and wisdom that no one will be able to resist." This does not mean that Christians will be spared death — "they will kill some of you" — but that no violence can destroy what you are in God: "Not a hair of your head will be lost." It is a way of saying: your life is kept safe in the hands of the Father. Even through death, you remain alive in God's life. Jesus twice uses the expression "for my Name's sake." In Hebrew, "The Name" refers to God himself: to say "for the Name's sake" is to say "for God's sake." Thus Jesus reveals his own divinity: to suffer for his Name is to participate in the mystery of his love. In the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Luke shows Peter and John who, after being flogged, "went away rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering for the Name of Jesus" (Acts 5:41). It is the same certainty that Saint Paul expresses in his Letter to the Romans: "Neither death nor life, nor any creature can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:38-39). Catastrophes, wars, epidemics — all these "shocks" of the world — must not take away our peace. The true sign of believers is the serenity that comes from trust. In the turmoil of the world, the calmness of God's children is already a testimony. Jesus sums it up in one word: "Take courage: I have overcome the world!" (Jn 16:33). And here is a spiritual synthesis: Jesus does not promise a life without trials, but a salvation stronger than death. Not even a hair...' means that no part of you is forgotten by God. Persecution does not destroy, but purifies faith. Nothing can separate us from the love of God: our security is the risen Christ. To believe is to remain steadfast, even when everything trembles.

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

Our blindness, between religious sense and Faith

(Lk 18:35-43)

The blind man without a name and crouched at the edges represents us: he is not biologically blind, but one who adjust himself at random.

He cannot «look up» [the key verb to vv.41-43 is «aná-blèpein»] because he does not cultivate ideals; he is satisfied with what gives the contour, which anesthetizes him.

Consequence: the victims of an indolent ideology can confuse the Son of God who donates all of himself and transmits vitality, with the ‘son of David’ (vv.38-39) - who does not convey, but rather takes away life.

The misunderstanding has serious consequences.

Initially every seeker of God risks exchanging the Lord for a phenomenal superman and captain who blesses and favors friends e.g. in their expectations of tranquility, lack of concern and mediocre stasis.

It is a huge defect of sight, because the criteria of wise and solid existence are reversed at all - risking to stick life in a puddle; at most, dragging it to the ground.

If one finds oneself at this level of myopia, it is better to «lift one’s gaze» folded over one’s navel, for short-term petty interests.

Who does not "see well" becomes a man of habit, every day is accompanied to the same places by the same people.

He stands still, «sitting» (v.35) at the edge of a road where people proceed and does not limit as much as him to survive resigned, without snaps.

Such clumsy ones [by choice] - everything expect from the recognition of others; they only live of that. And all they do is repeating identical words and gestures.

Their horizon at hand does not allow them to enter the flow of the Way, where people get busy: building, evolving, expressing themselves, providing for less fortunate sisters and brothers.

An existence dragged to the margins of any interest that is not one’s own money pouch.

These persons live on the movement of others; they are full of small benevolences and opinions bartered by those who pass, for listlessness never re-examined and made their own.

The Word of the Nazarene [in the language of the Gospels the epithet "being of Nazareth" meant "revolutionary, hot-headed, subversive"] triggers the listless.

Personal contact with Jesus corrected his gaze, made him recover the ideal optics - transmitting a diametrically opposite model of a successful man.

In short, Jesus corrects the inert myopia of those who are fond of their ‘place’.

Religiosity or personal Faith: it’s a decisive choice. To start away (from there), reinvent life, abandon the mantle [cf. Mc 10,50] on which common comments and offerings were collected.

Opening the eyes and «rising them up», as an already divine man would do. Pocketing nothing but pearls of light, instead of alms.

In such wise, the Gospel invites a perspective view, which does not fit.

The ‘Fratelli Tutti’ encyclical also proposes visual angles that provoke decision and action: new, invigorating, visionary, daring eyes, filled with 'passage' and Hope.

On muddy roads you can get dirty and you are uncertain, but there we all can proceed in wisdom: on the way that belongs to us; in the movement of the Priesthood of Christ.

With healthy ‘perception’.

[Monday 33rd wk. in O.T.  November 17, 2025]

The movement of the priesthood of Christ

(Lk 18:35-43)

The encyclical Brothers All invites a perspective look, which does not adapt.

Pope Francis proposes views that provoke decision and action: new, energetic, visionary eyes, filled with "passage" and Hope.

It "speaks to us of a reality that is rooted in the depths of the human being, regardless of the concrete circumstances and historical conditioning in which he lives. It speaks to us of a thirst, of an aspiration, of a yearning for fullness, for a fulfilled life, of a measuring oneself against what is great, against what fills the heart and lifts the spirit towards great things, such as truth, goodness and beauty, justice and love. [...] Hope is bold, it knows how to look beyond personal comfort, the small securities and compensations that narrow the horizon, to open itself to great ideals that make life more beautiful and dignified" (n.55) [quoted from a greeting to young people in Havana, September 2015].

Distraught, Paul VI admitted:

"Yes, there are many mediocre Christians; and not only because they are weak or lacking in formation, but because they want to be mediocre and because they have their so-called good reasons of the right middle, of ne quid nimis, as if the Gospel were a school of moral indolence, or as if it authorised serving conformity. Is this not hypocrisy? Inconsistency? Relativism according to the wind that blows?" [passim].

It sounds like a portrait of the shabby, blind life that sometimes catches us: 'nothing too much', 'never the excessive'.

A sort of Don Abbondio-like existence, in contrast to which Manzoni delineates the icon of the man of Faith - who precisely stands out over the mediocre devotee - in the solemn and decisive figure of Cardinal Federigo.

A prelate who instead 'had to fight with the gentlemen of ne quid nimis, who, in everything, would have wanted him to stay within the limits, that is, within their limits'.

Not the reassured qualunquism of a pious coward and situationist, who pretends not to see, is content with his half-assed niche; he sits in the shabby threshing-floor of the minimum union, he muddles along and does not expose himself.

The passage in Lk is a teaching from the very first forms of baptismal liturgy reserved for new believers, called photismòi-illuminati [those who from the darkness of pagan life finally opened their eyes to the Light].

The passage illustrates what happens to a person when he meets Christ and receives his existential orientation: he abandons established but not personally reworked positions and becomes a critical witness.

The narrative is set on the comparison between material downward gazes (such as those of pagans or arrogant followers) and open gazes, capable of lifting man's eye from the fetters of semblance, habit and destructive outer or inner powers.

Comparison brings to the surface what counts in life, what has weight and is not swept away by the impediments of an empty spirituality, enraptured or attracted by epidermic cravings; harnessed to the trappings of social roles or cultural and spiritual conformisms - by customs inherited but not sifted.

In short: the Lord wants us to understand that conformism to the environment and empty devotion inculcate a swampy, lifeless, irrelevant understanding.

What, then, is needed to "see" with the perception of God, beyond appearances, and to lift oneself up from a grey life of alms-giving, literally on the ground? And how to heal the vision of those who cannot see?

Even the 'neighbours' have more or less clear expectations of how to enter Christ's priesthood movement.

The disciples themselves are influenced by an often indifferent crowd around them that expects little but quiet, leisure and favours; and that presses for entry 'into their bounds'.

The nameless blind man crouching at the edge represents us: he is not biologically blind, but one who adjusts himself haphazardly.

He is unable to "look up" [the key-verb in vv.41-43 is "aná-blèpein"] because he does not cultivate ideals; he is content with what passes the outline, which anaesthetises him.

Conditioned by false teachers and approximate spiritual guides, he too is blocked by a spirit of lethargy that aims his existence downwards.

Consequence: the victims of an indolent ideology may confuse the Son of God who gives everything of himself and transmits vitality, with the son of David (v.38) - who does not give, but takes away life.

Jesus resembles and refers to the Father, not to a skilful and quick-witted ruler, who knows how to tame the masses [a figure of a devious or violent style of domination, and of continuous revenge].

The misunderstanding has serious consequences.

Initially, every seeker of God is in danger of mistaking the Lord for a superman and phenomenal captain who blesses and favours his friends in their expectations of tranquillity, nonchalance and mediocre stasis.This is quite a flaw in one's eyesight, because one reverses the criteria of a wise and solid existence at all - risking sticking it in a puddle; at best, dragging it along the ground.

If one finds oneself at this level of short-sightedness, it is better to 'lift one's gaze' folded on one's own navel, for petty petty gain.

He who does not 'see well' becomes a man of habit, he is taken to the same places every day by the same people.

He stands still, 'sitting' (v.35) at the edge of a road where people go on and do not, like him, just survive resignedly, without jerks.

[While I was writing this, one of my high school professors - a person of great faith and dynamism - sent me an Indian proverb: 'if you see everything grey in front of you, move the elephant'].

Such clumsy people by choice - they expect everything from the recognition of others; they live only by begging. And they only repeat words and gestures that are always identical.

Their horizon at hand does not allow them to enter the flow of the Way, where people get busy building, evolving, expressing themselves, providing for their less fortunate brothers and sisters.

An existence dragged along the fringes of any interest other than one's own neglectful pouch.

Yet they are endowed with an old-fashioned religious sense; but precisely because of this - lacking the leap of faith - centred on themselves and the ideas that have been passed on.

They live on the movement of others; they live on petty benevolences and opinions bartered by those who pass by, out of listlessness never re-examined and made their own.

The Word of the Nazarene [in the language of the Gospels, the epithet 'being from Nazareth' meant 'revolutionary, hot-headed, subversive'] triggers the listless.

His new attitude becomes rather that of the 'infant'. He engages in an industrious, creative, practical - futuristic model of life.

He resurrects dynamically, getting rid of the rags on which he expected others to lay something in his favour.

The old garment ends up in the dust - thrown away as in the ancient baptismal liturgies: at any age he undertakes, outclassing petty securities.

He changes his life, looks it in the face; even though he knows he is complicating it, making it challenging and countercultural.

Personal contact with Jesus has corrected his gaze, made him regain his ideal perspective.

In this way, he understands the primordial and regenerating - indeed, recreating - sense of the Newness of God.

The face-to-face encounter conveyed to him a diametrically opposed model of a successful man; not subservient to tacticism.

In short, Jesus corrects the inert shortsightedness of those who are fond of their place.

"The wind that blows" infuses us with a lethal poison: the renunciatory poison of identifying-as-we-are, which rhymes with giving up and growing old.

Recovery from such blindness cannot be a... Miracle! Religiosity or Faith: it is a diriment choice.

It means lazily adapting to fashions of circumstance or the old dress of already 'said' behaviour and usual friendships, just waiting for some solution-lightning that does not involve too much...

That is to say, to depart from there, to reinvent one's life, to abandon the cloak [cf. Mk 10:50] on which comments and common oblations were collected.

Opening his eyes and "lifting them up", as an already divine man would do. Pocketing nothing but pearls of light, instead of alms.

On muddy roads we may get dirty and be uncertain, but we can proceed with knowledge: on the path that belongs to us; in the movement of the priesthood of Christ. With sound perception.

For - as in this episode - the Gospels not infrequently insist on the (devoutly absurd) criterion that the enemy of God is not sin, but the average, passive life of the now identified and placed.

To internalise and live the message:

Did the encounter with Christ remove like a veil from your eyes? Did you seize the opportunity to be born as a new man, and lift your gaze? Or do you remain myopic and inert?

The Passover

One day Jesus, approaching the city of Jericho, performed the miracle of restoring sight to a blind man begging by the roadside (cf. Lk 18:35-43). Today we want to grasp the significance of this sign because it also touches us directly. The evangelist Luke says that the blind man was sitting by the roadside begging (cf. v. 35). A blind man in those days - but also until not so long ago - could only live by begging. The figure of this blind man represents many people who, even today, find themselves marginalised because of physical or other disadvantage. He is separated from the crowd, he sits there while people pass by busy, absorbed in their own thoughts and many things... And the street, which can be a place of encounter, for him instead is a place of loneliness. So many crowds passing by...And he is alone.

It is a sad image of an outcast, especially against the backdrop of the city of Jericho, the beautiful and lush oasis in the desert. We know that it was in Jericho that the people of Israel arrived at the end of the long exodus from Egypt: that city represents the gateway to the promised land. We remember the words that Moses spoke on that occasion: "If there be among thee any of thy brethren that are in need in one of thy cities in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, neither shalt thou shut thy hand from thy brother in need. Since the needy shall never be lacking in the land, then I give you this command and say to you: Open your hand generously to your poor and needy brother in your land" (Deut 15:7, 11). The contrast between this recommendation of God's Law and the situation described in the Gospel is jarring: while the blind man cries out for Jesus, the people rebuke him to keep quiet, as if he had no right to speak. They have no compassion for him; on the contrary, they feel annoyance at his cries. How often do we, when we see so many people in the street - people in need, people who are sick, people who have no food - feel annoyance. How often, when we are faced with so many refugees and displaced persons, do we feel annoyance. It is a temptation we all have. All of us, even me! That is why the Word of God admonishes us, reminding us that indifference and hostility make us blind and deaf, prevent us from seeing our brothers and sisters and do not allow us to recognise the Lord in them. Indifference and hostility. And sometimes this indifference and hostility also becomes aggression and insult: "but drive them all away!", "put them somewhere else!". This aggression is what people did when the blind man shouted: 'but you go away, come on, don't talk, don't shout'.

We note an interesting detail. The Evangelist says that someone from the crowd explained to the blind man the reason for all this by saying: "Jesus, the Nazarene, is passing by!" (v. 37). The passing of Jesus is indicated with the same verb used in the book of Exodus to speak of the passing of the exterminating angel who saves the Israelites in the land of Egypt (cf. Ex 12:23). It is the "passage" of the Passover, the beginning of deliverance: when Jesus passes by, there is always deliverance, there is always salvation! To the blind man, therefore, it is as if his Passover were being announced. Without allowing himself to be intimidated, the blind man cries out to Jesus several times, recognising him as the Son of David, the awaited Messiah who, according to the prophet Isaiah, would open the eyes of the blind (cf. Is 35:5). Unlike the crowd, this blind man sees with the eyes of faith. Thanks to it, his plea has a powerful efficacy. Indeed, on hearing this, "Jesus stopped and commanded them to bring him to him" (v. 40). In doing so, Jesus takes the blind man off the side of the road and places him in the centre of attention of his disciples and the crowd. Let us also think, when we have been in bad situations, even sinful situations, how it was Jesus himself who took us by the hand and took us off the side of the road and gave us salvation. Thus a twofold passage is realised. First: the people had proclaimed good news to the blind man, but wanted nothing to do with him; now Jesus forces everyone to become aware that the good news implies putting the one who was excluded at the centre of their path. Secondly, in turn, the blind man could not see, but his faith opens to him the way to salvation, and he finds himself in the midst of those who have gone out into the streets to see Jesus. Brothers and sisters, the passing of the Lord is an encounter of mercy that unites all around Him so that we can recognise those in need of help and consolation. In our lives too, Jesus passes by; and when Jesus passes by, and I notice it, it is an invitation to draw closer to Him, to be better, to be a better Christian, to follow Jesus.

Jesus turns to the blind man and asks him: "What do you want me to do for you?" (v. 41). These words of Jesus are striking: the Son of God now stands before the blind man as a humble servant. He, Jesus, God, says: "But what do you want me to do for you? How do you want me to serve you?" God makes himself the servant of sinful man. And the blind man responds to Jesus no longer by calling him "Son of David", but "Lord", the title that the Church from the beginning applies to the Risen Jesus. The blind man asks to see again and his wish is granted: "Have sight again! Your faith has saved you" (v. 42). He has shown his faith by calling on Jesus and absolutely wanting to meet Him, and this has brought him salvation as a gift. Thanks to faith, he can now see and, above all, feel loved by Jesus. This is why the account ends by reporting that the blind man "began to follow him glorifying God" (v. 43): he becomes a disciple. From beggar to disciple, this is also our path: we are beggars, all of us. We are always in need of salvation. And all of us, every day, must take this step: from beggar to disciple. And so, the blind man sets out after the Lord, becoming part of his community. He whom they wanted to silence, now bears loud witness to his encounter with Jesus of Nazareth, and "all the people, seeing, gave praise to God" (v. 43). A second miracle occurs: what happened to the blind man makes the people finally see as well. The same light illuminates them all, uniting them in the prayer of praise. Thus Jesus pours out his mercy on all those he meets: he calls them, brings them to himself, gathers them, heals and enlightens them, creating a new people that celebrates the wonders of his merciful love. Let us also be called by Jesus, and let us be healed by Jesus, forgiven by Jesus, and go after Jesus praising God. So be it!

[Pope Francis, General Audience 15 June 2016]

These favorite children of the heavenly Father are like the blind man in the Gospel, Bartimaeus (Mk 10: 46) at the gates of Jericho. Jesus the Nazarene passed that way. It is the road that leads to Jerusalem, where the Paschal Event will take place, his sacrificial Easter, towards which the Messiah goes for us. It is the road of his exodus which is also ours: the only way that leads to the land of reconciliation, justice and peace. On that road, the Lord meets Bartimaeus, who has lost his sight. Their paths cross, they become a single path. The blind man calls out, full of faith "Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!". Jesus replies: "Call him!", and adds: "What do you want me to do for you?". God is light and the Creator of light. Man is the son of light, made to see the light, but has lost his sight, and is forced to beg. The Lord, who became a beggar for us, walks next to him: thirsting for our faith and our love. "What do you want me to do for you?". God knows the answer, but asks; he wants the man to speak. He wants the man to stand up, to find the courage to ask for what is needed for his dignity. The Father wants to hear in the son's own voice the free choice to see the light once again, the light, the reason for Creation. "Master, I want to see!" And Jesus says to him: "Go your way; your faith has saved you'. Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way" (Mk 10: 51-52). 

Dear Brothers, we give thanks because this "mysterious encounter between our poverty and the greatness" of God was achieved also in the Synodal Assembly for Africa that has ended today. God renewed his call: "Take courage! Get up..." (Mk 10: 49). And the Church in Africa, through its Pastors, having come from all the countries in the continent, from Madagascar and the other islands, has embraced the message of hope and light to walk on the path that leads to the Kingdom of God. "Go your way; your faith has saved you" (Mk 10: 52). Yes, faith in Jesus Christ when properly understood and experienced guides men and peoples to liberty in truth, or, to use the three words of the Synodal theme, to reconciliation, to justice and to peace. Bartimaeus who, healed, follows Jesus along the road, is the image of that humanity that, illuminated by faith, walks on the path towards the promised land. Bartimaeus becomes in turn a witness of the light, telling and demonstrating in the first person about being healed, renewed, regenerated. This is the Church in the world: a community of reconciled persons, operators of justice and peace; "salt and light" amongst the society of men and nations. Therefore the Synod strongly confirmed and manifested this that the Church is the Family of God, in which there can be no divisions based on ethnic, language or cultural groups. Moving witnesses showed us that, even in the darkest moments of human history, the Holy Spirit is at work and transforming the hearts of the victims and the persecutors, that they may know each other as brothers. The reconciled Church is the potent leaven of reconciliation in each country and in the whole African continent. 

The Second Reading offers another perspective: the Church, the community that follows Christ on the path of love, has a sacerdotal form. The category of priesthood, as the interpretive key of the Mystery of Christ and, consequently, of the Church, was introduced in the New Testament, by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews. His intuition originates from Psalm 110, quoted in today's words, where the Lord God assures the Messiah with a solemn promise: "You are a priest for ever of the order of Melchizedek" (Ps 110: 4). A reference which leads to another, taken from Psalm 2, in which the Messiah announces the Lord's decree which says about him: "You are my son, today have I fathered you" (Ps 2: 7). From these texts derives the attribution to Jesus Christ of a sacerdotal character, not in the generic sense, rather "of the order of Melchizedek", in other words the supreme and eternal priesthood, of divine not human origins. If each supreme priest "is taken from among men and made their representative before God" (Heb 5: 1), He alone, Christ, the Son of God, possesses a ministry that can be identified to his own person, a singular and transcendent ministry, on which universal salvation relies. Christ transmitted this ministry of his to the Church through the Holy Spirit; therefore the Church has in itself, in each of its members, because of Baptism, a sacerdotal characteristic. However here is a decisive aspect the priesthood of Jesus Christ is no longer primarily ritual, rather it is existential. The dimension of the rite is not abolished, but, as clearly seen in the institution of the Eucharist, takes its meaning from the Paschal Mystery, which completes the ancient sacrifices and surpasses them. Thus contemporarily a new sacrifice, a new ministry and a new temple are born, and all three coincide with the Mystery of Jesus Christ. United to him through the Sacraments, the Church prolongs its saving action, allowing man to be healed, like the blindman Bartimaeus. Thus the ecclesial community, in the steps of its Master and Lord, is called to walk decisively along the path of service, to share the condition of men and women in its time, to witness to all the love of God and thus sow hope.

[Pope Benedict, homily for the closing of the Special Synod for Africa 25 October 2009]

Today's Gospel reading [...] reminds us of the episode of the healing of the blind man of Jericho. The Gospel also reveals his name: Bartimaeus, and reconstructs his plea-cry: "Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me" (Mk 10:47). Finally he relates his moving plea: "Rabbi, that I may regain my sight" (Mk 10:51). And Jesus' answer is not long in coming: "Go, your faith has saved you" (Mk 10:52).

Here, one of those signs that Jesus of Nazareth performed during his public ministry. It is, this, a particularly eloquent sign: by restoring sight to the blind man, Jesus sheds light on his life. The entire mission of Christ is full of this meaning: He casts divine light on human life through the Gospel. In the light of Christ's words, human life acquires meaning: the ultimate meaning, which also illuminates the different spheres of this earthly life.

[Pope John Paul II, homily 27 October 1991]

An invitation not to "auction off our Christian identity card", not to conform to the spirit of the world, which when it prevails leads to apostasy and persecution. Pope Francis identified this when commenting on the liturgy of the word on Monday morning, 16 November, during the customary celebration of Mass in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta.

The Pontiff dedicated his reflection entirely to the first reading, taken from the first book of Maccabees (1:10-15.41-43.54-57 62-64), summarising its contents "with three words: worldliness, apostasy, persecution". Rereading it, Francis noted "that the passage begins like this: 'In those days a perverse root came forth'". And he explained how "the image of the root that is under the ground, that is not seen, that seems to do no harm, but then grows and shows, makes one see, its own negative reality", is also present in the letter to the Hebrews, whose "author admonished his disciples in the same way: 'Let no poisonous root spring up or grow among you, that causes evils and infects so many'".

In this regard, the Pope described "the phenomenology of the root", which "grows, always grows", even when - as in the case of the passage under examination - it may appear to be a "reasonable root: "Let us go and make an alliance with the nations around us; why so many differences? Because since we separated from them, many evils have befallen us. Let us go to them, we are equal'". And so, he went on to describe, "some of the people took the initiative and went to the king who gave them power to introduce the institutions of the nations. Where? In the chosen people, that is, in the Church of that time'.

But, Francis immediately warned, in that action 'there is worldliness. We do what the world does, the same: we auction off our identity card; we are equal to all'. Just like the men of Israel, who "began to do this: they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to the customs of the nations, the pagan customs; they cancelled the signs of circumcision, that is, they denied the faith, and turned away from the holy covenant; they joined the nations and sold themselves to do evil". But, the Pontiff warned, precisely 'this, which seemed so reasonable, - "we are like everyone, we are normal" - became destruction'. Because, he reiterated, 'this is worldliness. This is the path of worldliness, of that poisonous, perverse root'.

In this regard, Francis confided how he was always struck by the fact 'that the Lord, at the Last Supper, prayed for the unity of his own and asked the Father to free them from every spirit of the world, from every worldliness, because worldliness destroys identity; worldliness leads to the single thought, there is no difference'.

And the first consequence of this is apostasy. The Pope demonstrated this by continuing his rereading of the passage: "Then the king prescribed throughout his kingdom that all should form one people - single thinking, worldliness - and each should abandon his own customs. All the people complied with the king's orders; even many Israelites accepted his worship: they sacrificed to idols and profaned the Sabbath". Hence "apostasy. That is, worldliness leads to single-mindedness and apostasy. Differences are not allowed". We end up becoming "all the same. And in the history of the Church we have seen, I think of one instance, that religious festivals have had their names changed - the Lord's Christmas has another name - in order to erase identity'.

Moreover, one must not forget, the reading seems to say, that apostasy is followed by persecution. "The king," the Pontiff continued, "raised up on the altar an abomination of devastation. Even in the neighbouring cities of Judah they erected altars and burned incense on the doors of houses and in the squares; they tore up the books of the law that they could find and threw them into the fire. If, with anyone, the book of the covenant was found and if anyone obeyed the law, the sentence of the king condemned him to death". This is precisely 'persecution', which 'begins from a root' even 'small, and ends in the abomination of desolation'. After all, "this is the deception of worldliness". And therefore at the Last Supper Jesus asked the Father: "I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but keep them from the world", that is, "from this mentality, from this humanism, which comes to take the place of the true man, Jesus Christ"; from this worldliness "which comes to take away our Christian identity and leads us to the single thought: "Everyone does this, why not us?".

Here then is the relevance of today's passage, which "in these times, must make us think" about what our identity is. We must ask ourselves: "Is it Christian or worldly? Or do I call myself Christian because as a child I was baptised, or was I born in a Christian country, where everyone is Christian?" According to Francis it is necessary to find an answer to these questions, because "worldliness that enters slowly" then "grows, justifies itself and infects". How? "It grows like that root" mentioned in the reading; "it justifies itself - "let's do like all people, we are not so different" - it always seeks a justification, and in the end it infects, and so many evils come from there".

At the end of his homily, the Pope pointed out how the entire "liturgy, in these last days of the liturgical year", makes us think about these things, and in particular today he tells us "in the name of the Lord: beware of poisonous roots, of perverse roots that lead you away from the Lord and make you lose your Christian identity". In short, it is an exhortation to keep away "from worldliness" and to ask in prayer, in particular, that the Church be guarded "from all forms of worldliness. May the Church always have the identity laid out by Jesus Christ; may we all have the identity" received in baptism; "and may this identity not be thrown out" just to "be like everyone else, for reasons of 'normality'". Ultimately, Francis concluded, "may the Lord give us the grace to maintain and guard our Christian identity against the spirit of worldliness that always grows, justifies itself and infects."

[Pope Francis, St. Martha, in L'Osservatore Romano 16-17/11/2015]

(Lk 21:5-19)

Values and emotional independence

Placing in the events of persecution

(Lk 21:12-19)

The course of history is a time when God composes the confluence of our freedom and circumstances.

In such folds there is often a vector of life, an essential aspect, a definitive destiny, that escapes us.

But to the non-mediocre eye of the person of Faith, abuses and even martyrdom are also a gift.

To learn the important lessons of life, every day the believer ventures into what he is afraid to do, overcoming fears.

The spousal and gratuitous love received places us in a condition of reciprocity, of active desire to unite life to Christ - albeit in the meagre nature of our responses.

Continuing instead to complain about failures, dangers, calamities, everyone will see in us women like the others and ordinary men - and everything will end at this level.

We won’t be on the other side. At most we will try to escape the harshness, or we will end up looking for circumstance’s allies (vv.14-15).

Mt intends to help his communities to clash with worldly logic and to place themselves fervently in the events of persecution.

Social harassments are not fatalities, but opportunities for mission; places of high eucharistic witness (v.13).

The persecuted do not need external crutches, nor do they have to live in the anguish of collapse.

They have the task of being signs of the God’s Kingdom, which gradually leads the distant and the usurpers themselves to a different awareness.

No one is the arbiter of reality and all are twigs subject to reverses, but in the humanizing condition of the apostles overflows an emotional independence.

This happens through the intimate, living sense of a Presence, and the reading of external events as an exceptional action of the Father who ‘reveals himself’.

In this mouldable energy magma, unique paths emerge, unprecedented opportunities for growth... even in adversity.

Attitude without alibi or granite certainties: with the sole conviction that everything will be put back on the line.

Sacred and profane times come to coincide in a fervent Covenant, which nests and bears fruit even in moments of travail and nonsense.

Here the only necessary resource is the spiritual strength to go all the way... yes, in paradoxes of other side.

It’s in the Lord and in the insidious or day-to-day reality the "place" for each of us. Not without lacerations.

Yet we draw spiritual energy from the knowledge of Christ, from the sense of deep bond with Him and even minute and varied reality, or fearsome - always personal (v.18).

Our story will not be like an easy and happy ending novel.

But we’ll have the opportunity to witness in the present the most genuine ancient roots: at every moment God calls, manifests himself - and what seems to be failure becomes Food and source of Life.

To internalize and live the message:

What kind of reading do you do, and how do you place yourself in events of persecution? 

Are you aware that setbacks do not ‘come’ for despair, but to free you from closure in stagnant cultural patterns (and not yours)?

[33rd Sunday in O.T. (year C), November 16, 2025]

(Lk 21:5-19)

Stone upon stone, dark hues?

Instances of the world, idea of 'perfection', sense of Christ

(Lk 21:5-11)

In his Apocalyptic Discourse Lk wants us to meditate on the meaning of history and 'what remains'... but how many adverse conditions and oppositions!

So he aims to sustain the hope [not fictitious and yet frustrated] of the poor and persecuted people of his communities.

Certainly, Faith turns to the God who guides history. He is Lord of it; however, today remains obscure and uncertain; thus we remain as if hunted down by demands that do not correspond to us - but overtake us.

Even some believers are beginning to doubt: is God really in control of events and the cosmos? It is the same question we ask ourselves today: in the midst of so much misfortune, where will we end up?

How to bite the bullet and be fulfilled in the midst of emergency? How do we live through conflict and bewilderment, without allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by events? How do we emerge from so much darkness, which we do not like?

In times of change, global insecurity and political unrest, parasitic cavities continue to crop up, accentuating disorientation, feelings of inadequacy; perhaps guilt.

Here are the cunning quarters who (even in the ecclesial undergrowth) want to take advantage of the turmoil and confusion, deceiving weak and bewildered souls - even the young.

In order not to be beguiled, confused and plagued, a better awareness must take over, a refinement of perception, in order to discern the meaning of the 'kingdoms' that come and go.

The sovereignty of God advocates a maturing of the 'harvest' with the light and warmth of the Spirit, a deeper discernment of the genius and events of the century.

Not excluding ugliness: it too has the power to activate us, to seek new harmonies.

The authentic Church has a new vision, which precisely advocates these earthquakes and calamities, the upheavals of the ancient world - the world that, today as always, is teetering and coming to an end.

On the other hand, upheavals do not disintegrate creation: they prepare a radically new one.

One must endure within and apply oneself - perhaps taking more care of the character of time, of the unusual friends of the soul, and disregarding the inherited [or imposed] idea of 'perfection'.

So many worlds built by the mind and hands of man imagined perpetual, even the End of Everything.

Instead they continue to crumble, dragging away ancient expressions, beliefs, customs, hegemonies, visions of things...

Every era brings with it the crumbling of human constructions and empires - fragile and insubstantial, despite appearances to the contrary (and the sense of permanence with which we interpret them).

So even the Temple of bricks and stucco - the centre of the people's life and identity - is doomed to agony, to crumbling, to the most miserable ruin, to be razed to the ground... despite its imposing magnificence.

It bewilders us, certainly. But if one-sided, it no longer makes present, but rather dissolves the Mystery - concentration of novelty and love.

When, for example, one closes cultural frontiers [and the search for depth] for fear of 'problems', and becomes intransigent, the devout present becomes a pure reality of the world, which sooner or later will be dismantled.

The functions of the earth have no law other than to perish: they are undermined at the base, destined to evaporate. In an instant they go from control to disintegration and from dominance to insignificance.

Radiant beauty and the 'depth' of the eternal and holy city - with its jealous privileges, and minute or generalist (and terrifying) doctrines - turn into an overthrow and overthrow: into a profile of death.

A reversal is enough.

Futile to imagine it lasting and keeping it up at all costs.

Conversely, the New Kingdom is intimate and subdued: that is why it is not splintered by external events.

Some upheavals are not so much to be resisted as to be with them.

The goal is to be 're-born' - as children, still regenerated, journeying through another founding Eros [to be abandoned, otherwise it cannot fulfil its lofty function].

It establishes itself in hearts and transforms them; it cements them, without clamour: with great power, subversive, triggering new forms - but with secret virtue.

It has a different, welcoming pace, and a different time.

So we do not lose any part of ourselves; on the contrary, we make all sides of personality and relationships grow.

It is the plural Faith that welcomes opposites, to solidify the stones.

To internalise and live the message:

How do you live the upheavals?

Do you surrender your freedom and chase after charlatans who fix and worsen everyone's existence - or do you oppose them in Christ, igniting Hope and your most blazing secret powers (even opposites)?The Bush

Outstanding 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 be able 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 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, and make him tread impervious situations and territories.

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

How to explain the passion for 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, hidden even behind individual blood spots.

Qualities that arise spontaneously and have their own path to conversion, but that sooner or later have to come into play 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 truly ours.

Continuing to insist on that which damages the soul's development and its full flowering, makes it indecisive or cunning and stubborn - especially if suggestible, 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.

Believers who experience this inner Fire that is not extinguished are not ushered into a world that only wants to endure, all already chiselled out and knowing its destination.

The Father's Flame does not express itself through artifices to be recited: it wants to recover and bring home all 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 unknown to the schemes that is the 'spark' that presses in and acts as therapy to the sick soul; it 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-bearing Nucleus-that-doesn't-consume-itself continually 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 conformity of religions, but it cannot happen in the sphere of the life of Faith.

In this way, 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 that comes to us.

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.

One must abandon oneself to such personal lines. Not out of need, duty, calculation, nor just to understand something more, but to enjoy the spiritual Light; the rays of Love, near and far, creative of the inner and of genius forces [around].

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 the Lymph - both of the tree and of the roots themselves - to make us into well-rounded persons.

Thus we will no longer seek to resemble our 'models':

The principle of such transmutation bursting upon the placid and conventional scenario has re-proposed why we are in the world.

It is our life-saving task... or the very barrenness of 'types' to conform to.

Here, then, is our dead and nostalgic side, or the dark evil of living - and the exhaustion of a wisdom that has no more than Wisdom.

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

The passionate state is the force of practical thought and intellect.

Intimate involvement makes our identity-character 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 it brings the soul from external events back to the Core: from vicissitudes, from things, from wounds, to our innermost and richest being.

It knows that from the stimulus of that source centre - intimate link of origin, primordial - will burst 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 is released... new engagements, brilliant intuitions; practical aptitudes, weaving the magic of the bride-matched soul.

It is such a 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, bitter abandonments. Like a power that calls us back to ourselves, to our unexpressed talents, to the energy of the gaze that captures the sense of a story, of 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 bears the interference of external judgements poorly, which do not dwell in the depths but contribute to the atmosphere that circulates around it.

It feels 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 the unusual, autonomous seed of the soul. As it is: ascetic effort would yield poor results.

The hidden Source expresses itself in events imbued with the future, drenched in an atmosphere of Presence.

Events imbued with 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, 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.

The world of acquired knowledge is conversely 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 counter 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.

So the unforeseen spark of the heart [that never matches] cannot be humiliated, threatened, shattered, removed, or alienated.

It is our consistent Inclination, which releases a clear radiance of Oneness.

Values and emotional independence

Placing oneself in the events of persecution

(Lk 21:12-19)

The course of history is a time in which God composes the confluence of our freedom and circumstances.In such folds there is often a vector of life, an essential aspect, an ultimate fate, that escapes us.

But to the unmediated eye of the person of Faith, even abuse and even martyrdom are a gift.

In order to learn the important lessons of life, the believer ventures into what he is afraid to do, overcoming his fears.

The spousal and gratuitous love received places one in a condition of reciprocity, of an active desire to unite one's life with Christ - albeit in the meagreness of our responses.

By continuing instead to complain about failures, dangers, calamities, everyone will see in us women like the others and ordinary men - and everything will end at this level.

We will not be on the other side.

At best we will try to escape the harshness, or we will end up seeking allies of circumstance (vv.14-15).

Lk intends to help his communities to bump up against worldly logic and place themselves in the events of persecution in a fervent manner.

Social anguish is not a fatality, but an opportunity for mission; a place of high Eucharistic witness (v.13).

The persecuted do not need external crutches, nor do they have to live in the anguish of collapse.

They have the task of being signs of the Kingdom of God, which gradually brings the distant and the usurpers themselves to a different awareness.

No one is the arbiter of reality and all are twigs subject to toppling, but in the humanising condition of the apostles an emotional independence shines through.

This happens because of the intimate, living sense of a Presence, and the reading of external events as an exceptional action of the Father who reveals himself.

In this mouldable magma of energy, unique paths emerge, unprecedented opportunities for growth... even in adversity.

An attitude without alibis or granitic certainties: with the sole conviction that everything will be put back into play [not through effort: through shifting one's gaze, simply].

Sacred and profane time come to coincide in a fervent covenant, which nestles and broods fruit even in moments of travail and paradox.

Here, the only resource needed is the spiritual strength to go all the way... in the other side's counter-senses.

Thus even the family or 'clan' to which one belongs must be led to a different world of convictions; not without lacerating contrasts (v.16).

The Torah itself obliged the denunciation of those unfaithful to the religion of the fathers - even close relatives - to the point of putting them to death (Deut 13:7-12) [in fact, just to designate the gravity of that kind of transgression].

The Announcement could only cause extreme divisions, and on basic issues such as success, or progress in this life - the vision of a new world, of the utopia of other and other people's needs.

Everything will seem to conspire and mock our ideal (v.17).

The reference to the Name alludes to the historical story of Jesus of Nazareth, with its load not only of ideal and explicit goodness, but also of denunciatory activity against the official institution and the false leaders who had put the God of the Exodus under hijacking.

Despite the interference, being misunderstood, slandered, ridiculed, blackmailed and hated... anchored in Christ we will experience that the stages of history and life proceed towards Hope.

God's 'protection' does not preserve from gloomy hues, nor from being harmed, but ensures that nothing is lost, not even a hair (v.18).

Even this spontaneous example that Jesus draws from nature - an echo of the conciliatory life dreamt for us by the Father - introduces us to the Happiness that makes one aware of existing in all personal reality.

Indeed, the expression shows the value of genuine, silent, unremarkable things, which nevertheless inhabit us - they are not 'shadows'. And we perceive them without effort or cerebral commitment.

In the time of momentous choices, of the emergency that seems to put everything in check - but wants to make us less artificial - this awareness can overturn our judgement of substance, of the small and the great.

Indeed, for the adventure of love there is no accounting or clamour.

It is in the Lord and in the insidious or summary reality the 'place' for each of us. Not without tears.

Yet we derive spiritual energy from knowing Christ, from the sense of deep connection with Him and the reality, even minute and varied, or fearful - always personal (v.18).

And (indeed) the hereafter is not imprecise.

One does not have to misrepresent oneself in order to have consent... least of all for the 'heaven' that conquers death.

The destiny of oneness does not go to ruin: it is precious and dear, as it is in nature.

One must glimpse its Beauty, future and already present.

Nor will it matter to place oneself above and in front: rather in the background, already rich and perfect, in the intimate sense of the fullness of being.

Thus we will not have to trample on each other (Lk 12:1)... even to meet Jesus.

"We are absolutely lost if we lack this particular individuality, the only thing we can truly call our own - and whose loss is also a loss for the whole world. It is most precious also because it is not universal'.

(Rabindranath Tagore)

Jesus warns us: we will not be able to count on unassailable friendships, nor on human powers lined up to defend the earthly plot.

Even he whom we thought close will scrutinise us with suspicion: the price of truth is always in the choice against the world of lies [even sacred, dated or ephemeral lies] all arrayed against.

Our story will not be like an easy novel with a happy ending.

But we will have a chance to witness in the present the most genuine ancient roots: that in every moment God calls, manifests Himself - and what appears to be failure becomes Food and the source of Life.

Obstinate only in the change of proportions, between stripping and elevation. In the opposition of the very criteria and foundations of thinking.

To internalise and live the message:

What kind of reading do you do, and how do you place yourself in the events of persecution? 

Are you aware that hindrances do not come out of desperation, but rather to free you from closure in stagnant cultural patterns (and not your own)?

On the other side of the world

Christians must therefore always be found on the 'other side' of the world, the side chosen by God: not persecutors, but persecuted; not arrogant, but meek; not sellers of smoke, but submissive to the truth; not impostors, but honest.

This fidelity to the style of Jesus - which is a style of hope - even unto death, would be called by the early Christians by a beautiful name: 'martyrdom', which means 'testimony'. There were many other possibilities, offered by the vocabulary: one could call it heroism, self-denial, self-sacrifice. Instead, the Christians of the first hour called it by a name that smells of discipleship. Martyrs do not live for themselves, they do not fight to affirm their ideas, and they accept that they must die only out of fidelity to the Gospel. Nor is martyrdom the supreme ideal of Christian life, because above it there is charity, that is, love of God and neighbour. The Apostle Paul says it very well in his hymn to charity, understood as love of God and neighbour. The Apostle Paul says it very well in the hymn to charity: "Though I give all my goods for food and deliver up my body to boast, yet have not charity, it profiteth me nothing" (1 Cor 13:3). The idea that suicide bombers can be called 'martyrs' is repugnant to Christians: there is nothing in their end that can be approximated to the attitude of God's children.

Sometimes, reading the stories of so many martyrs of yesterday and today - who are more numerous than the martyrs of earlier times - we are amazed at the fortitude with which they faced their trials. This fortitude is a sign of the great hope that animated them: the certain hope that nothing and no one could separate them from the love of God given to us in Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 8:38-39).

May God always give us the strength to be his witnesses. May he grant us to live Christian hope above all in the hidden martyrdom of doing our daily duties well and with love. Thank you.

[Pope Francis, General Audience 28 June 2017].

The Meaning and the End, not the End

It is a time of joy for the feast of Easter, which awakens expectations and hopes of liberation. Jesus enters the temple in Jerusalem, everywhere covered with perfectly profiled marble and overflowing with gold.

"These things you observe, there will come days when no stone will be left upon stone, which will not be destroyed":

For a Jew it meant the end of the world. It was unthinkable that a place of such extent, luxury and magnificence could be undermined by some utopian theory.

Jesus meant: if you do not change your mindset and continue to think in terms of power and aggression, you will destroy yourselves and ruin forever the house of God, the sign of his presence and the centre of your identity.

This is what happened - by Vespasian's troops led by his favourite son and successor, Titus: tabula rasa (year 70).

Luke invites us to stop chasing other people's opinions - and instead reflect on the only interesting thing: how to put an end to the ancient world and begin a society guided by the Father's plan, for our integral good.

First of all, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the barkers who obsessively repeat: "This is the moment not to be missed, mind you! You will be great if you follow me and my group...".

So many moralisers, so many bitter disappointments. Even belief reduced to ideology and packaged codices: we see this every day.

Disappointed hopes also on the contrary, because of the desire to scapricciarsi... and even if advocated by science and technology: they turn out to be dehumanising.

Lk wants to help his communities not to remain on the margins of God's story.

Of course, persecution is to be reckoned with: a perfectly predictable outcome for those who go against the grain, and one that should not surprise us, nor throw us into despondency.Anyone who wishes even out of venal interest to perpetuate the ancient world that has led him to float above others, will certainly not spontaneously step aside. He is only annoyed by the plans of the Sons.

No terror! Amidst contortions and earthquakes, the antiquated set-up is reeling. But a new world is being born: that of the Pentecost earthquake.

It is a Gospel, that is, a proclamation of joy: the competitive world has had its coup de grace. The dawn of a splendid new day is dawning.

The passage between two ages is taking place - just as it is for us today: let us not lower our eyes, let us not be afraid; rather let us look up (v.28)!

The message calls into question three powers: religious, political and family.

The repetitive world of rituals and closed sacral interest is replaced by Faith [adherence to a spousal proposal, of love] that transcends the tactics and ideology of power.

And its homeland is a borderless realm.

The family world of religious societies tends to defend the narrow interest of the members, the home and the clan. Jesus creates an open universe.

His family is not confined to the fences of old blood; it opens the heart to limitless thought, to encounter without prejudice.

Because the essential thing is not to prevail and win, but to bear non-aggressive witness that the mentality of self-interest is a loser (in the sense that it does not build life), and that the ancient idea of man-God is impressive, but wormy, inauthentic, and will not stand the test of facts.

So there is no need to prepare defences, i.e. to act as any pagan would do: to seek the support of those who count, to sell out, to become omertous, to join power groups and the normal style of lying. All in order to defend oneself with artifice or assert oneself with guile.

Faith is at stake here. Not because an extra prayer or a greater fulfilment of devotions comes into play. And not because of calculation, effort or strategy, but because of the fact that the rising (opposite) Vision of reality corresponds to us spontaneously.

Falling in love is at stake: the disciple of Christ assimilates the Vision, recognises it as his own - because the true lover ends up seeing things as the beloved Person.

So, yesterday as today, the innocent still do not know that the Project they spontaneously collaborate with is unrealisable... that is why they carry it out.

It is the world of the children.

To internalise and live the message:

How do you read the enigmatic realities of the world? Is it "the" End or does "the" End emerge?

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

In today's Gospel passage, St Luke reproposes the Biblical view of history for our reflection and refers to Jesus' words that invite the disciples not to fear, but to face difficulties, misunderstandings and even persecutions with trust, persevering through faith in him. The Lord says: "When you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified; for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once" (Lk 21: 9). Keeping this admonition in mind, from the beginning the Church lives in prayerful waiting for her Lord, scrutinizing the signs of the times and putting the faithful on guard against recurring messiahs, who from time to time announce the world's end as imminent. In reality, history must run its course, which brings with it also human dramas and natural calamities. In it a design of salvation is developed that Christ has already brought to fulfilment in his Incarnation, death and Resurrection. The Church continues to proclaim this mystery and to announce and accomplish it with her preaching, celebration of the sacraments and witness of charity. 

Dear brothers and sisters, let us welcome Christ's invitation to face daily events by trusting in his providential love. Let us not fear the future, even when it can appear with bleak colours, because the God of Jesus Christ, who entered history to open it to its transcendent fulfilment, is the alpha and the omega, the first and the last (cf. Rv 1: 8). He guarantees that in every little but genuine act of love there is the entire sense of the universe, and that the one who does not hesitate to lose his own life for him finds it again in fullness (cf. Mt 16: 25).

With remarkable effectiveness, consecrated persons, who have placed their lives completely at the service of the Kingdom of God, invite us to keep this perspective alive. Among these I would like to particularly recall those called to contemplation in cloistered monasteries. The Church dedicates a special day to them this Wednesday, 21 November, Memorial of the Presentation in the Temple of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We owe much to these people who live on what Providence provides them through the generosity of the faithful. "As a spiritual oasis, a monastery reminds today's world of the most important, and indeed, in the end, the only decisive thing: that there is an ultimate reason why life is worth living: God and his unfathomable love" (Pope Benedict XVI, Heiligenkreuz, Austria, 9 September 2007). Faith, which is active in charity, is the true antidote against a nihilistic mentality that is spreading its influence in the world even more in our time. 

May Mary, Mother of the Incarnate Word, accompany us on our earthly pilgrimage. We ask her to sustain the witness of all Christians, so that it is always based on a solid and persevering faith.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus, 18 November 2007]