(or anonymous weight, toil, and deprivation, of collective rituals)

(Mt 13:44-46)

Jesus does not want to make us poor paupers, but allies - not because he intends to enrich us with 'superior goods' in a generic way.

The Encounter and its Action not only free us from attachment to things (as was once said, as the cornerstone of negative discernment).

His Presence completes and fulfils us by Name, in its own right.

He wants us to emancipate quickly and radically: in the capacity for acquisition and fullness, not emptying and depersonalisation.

The choice or 'renunciation' that he asks for does not concern petty options.

He does not make that which is not worthwhile stand out. That is why he does not belittle us.

Ancient religion emphasised collective manners and rituals, so paradoxically it accentuated the focus precisely on the transitory for all - that which really did not deserve to be overvalued.

The Lord knows that there is a 'more and better' than the petty acts of mortification, and the anonymous communal choices.

For he does not speak of sacrifices for the sake of the Kingdom, but of Joy, of fullness of being.

As the Message for the XXVII World Youth Day states, the whole experience of Faith is for Joy - the measure and Source of the heart: Happiness even in Conversion and trials (nos. 5-6).

In short, the divine condition Comes, it offers itself for free: it is not a reward for previous summary merits.

But it puts everything on the line, so that we come to a complete pursuit - not of burdens, labours, and privations. Least of all approvals.

It is the total Word that is the real deal.

A hidden treasure that must first be hidden again (v.44)!

We realise that we have only seen in part; there is still much more to be discovered.

It cannot be verified immediately and completely.

Beware: it must be hidden again! The codes of healing do not take postures from external configurations.

This is where the whole game lies, because such Splendour does not belong to the rituals of folklore, or to the duties of side duties, which would make us prisoners.

Precisely, the spring to break out of the cliché, out of protocol, out of conformist herd ways, becomes an opportunity to discover something new.

The authentic Kingdom will not be intrusive: it does not demand adherence - on pain of exclusion. It delivers other messages, transmuting from within.

It is grasped at our root, because it corresponds to the complete life project that inhabits us and that we mysteriously sense is ours.

We understand: it transfers our gaze, it makes us feel good. It makes us discover other worlds, and our own core; beyond the problems that grip us.

Outside the cog of thoughts and 'that's the way they all are' - the territory of the mind can produce different, eccentric perceptions; not so much ideas, rather images, perhaps seemingly absurd.

But it draws on important experiences of other energies, cosmic and acutely personal; hence of self, of others, of out-of-the ordinary opinions, and of God.

Multifaceted and converging profiles, mysteriously allied: that do not force us to live as strangers to ourselves, yet trace another future.

Here the inexplicable is at work.

The insecure becomes assertive, the loser is transformed by grace into the wise - even grasping the discomforts (they are not hindrances to be eliminated).

We understand that welcoming the Logos arising and corresponding to one's personal Vocation will not be terrifying, but regenerating.

He who will shift his thoughts, point everything, and bring forth his own essence.

He will be an attainable Person, not manipulable.

The multifaceted Friendship with one's eminent and profound Self will surpass all posturing.

In Spirit and in real life - even before valued inferiorly - each will discover the Magnificent One that others do not even remotely imagine can intimately excel.

Even Communion - conviviality of differences - we will learn from within.

In ancient times, Pearls were the most precious and splendid things: in short, man is in search of the Beautiful as the meaning of life and of his own personality.

But who is the Beautiful man, truly fascinating and living in a complete, non-epidermal way?

Matthew, before he let himself be made an apostle, assumed that his priceless Diamond was hoarding. And he has to think again.

Saul imagined that the boundless Gem - the authenticity of man - was the unflinchingness of the devout and practising man. The inflexibility of the one who observed all the traditions (even oral) of the people, and belonged to the most consistent and strict group of Pharisees.

Suddenly they both perceived the difference between the Love of one who meets Christ in earnest and the rubbish and ugliness of puerile beliefs - which always made them feel wrong.

These unlearned 'beliefs' external to woman and man produced people who were then unapproachable, duplicitous, untrustworthy, disloyal; scrounging, dangerous, cunning, violent, always ready to cheat.The free Gift of God prompts the Search for the Precious Pearl: that which is delicious, brotherly, giving, lovable and not to be missed.

It is the life of believers transformed into men of Faith who learn the necessity of transformation for life.

Adults endowed with the spirit of childhood: who no longer feel others' judgments looming over them, according to absurd expectations, and even in the common selection between 'inside' and 'outside'.

This, perhaps only because of the discrepancy between the mythology of the extraordinary devout 'models' proposed in some elite circles, and their own experience (inculcated as insufficient).

Critical witnesses then choose to no longer allow themselves to be disturbed by provisional and circumstantial commitments normally propagated - nor by any form of empty spirituality.

In this way, we will no longer be scolded by the obligations of the role, dates, fixed or other people's schedules... which do not take into account the person's hopes.

And the soul will no longer be reduced to an enslaved dependent that must constantly compare, and impose fatuous, forced, insidious relationships on itself (for fear of being isolated).

The preciousness of the Gospel, the valuable uniqueness of Faith in Christ, His authentic Kingdom, are the true Capital that makes one happy.

The most beautiful unexpectedness of the genuine Church: which has nothing to do with the fiction of identifications - inattentive to humanisation - nor with the inculcated flashiness of the many external things.

The people of children generated to new life will find wealth already in the being of things, in the furrows of history; from the soul, and in trials.

Out of concealment, out of patient silence, out of sudden reality, come understandings, empathies, spontaneous correspondences.

Voices that can come to us, to change our lives and make them unpredictable.

Exceptional encounters tell the soul: we are not just the inconveniences that afflict us.

But those events, one must know how to wait for them.