Inheriting the Life of the Eternal

(Mk 10:17-27)

 

What are we missing, despite our conviction and involvement? Why do we make certain behavioural choices?

Even if we were to devote years of commitment to the spiritual journey in religion, we would find that finally not just the icing on the cake is missing, but the global One.

It is not enough to accentuate or perfect the good things, we need to take a leap; one step (even an alternative step) more is not enough.

Paradoxically, one starts from the perception of an inner wound that stirs (v.17) the search for that Good that unifies and gives meaning to life.

Jesus makes us reflect on what is to be considered "Insignificant" (thus the Greek text: vv.17-18).

It is not a teaching for those who are far away, but for us: "One you lack!" - as if to emphasise: "You lack the All, you have almost nothing!".

Normal life goes on, but the path of trust is lacking. There is no astonishment.

Our going does not consolidate or qualify by adapting to our surroundings, adding heritage to heritage and shunning peccadilloes, or - above all - unknowns.

Too many things are missing: the challenge of the more personal, caring for others, confronting the drama of reality: there is no unity, there is a lack of authentic Presence that launches love into the spirit of adventure.

It is not a matter of having a cue in addition to what we already possess, continuing to be slaves to it (the titles, the capital or the money that give us orders as masters; they promise, they guarantee, they flatter).

It is not enough to improve on relationship situations that we know by heart, making ourselves approved from the very first step - nor is it enough to merely deepen pious curiosity by satiating the spiritual gluttony.

The transition from religiosity to Faith that brings our vocational destiny and full realisation is played out on a shortage of support - in chaotic systems of correlation.

To be happy is not worth "normalising" or remaining decent, devout people, because the soul demands the challenge of unexplored skies; waters that we have not probed: sides of ourselves, of others and of reality that we have not brought to the surface, and yet perhaps are not even probing.

We need to venture into the basal and extraordinary stretches that are also calling today; not wait for assurances.

And the starting point can also be the accent of doubt, a healthy restlessness of the soul - the very danger... typical of critical witnesses.

Let us not be silent about our being unsafe, nor about our sense of dissatisfaction with an ordinary, unshaken existence: these are fruitful suspensions, which (when ready) will activate us.

Feeling complete, fulfilled, happy? It is necessary for the eyes and heart to give way, not to be already occupied.

It is absolutely necessary to let go of certainties from the mind and one's own hand.

Gambling is not the maceration of oneself or of the main lines of one's personality - but the reckless investing of everything for another realm, where energies surface, different relationships are explored, and one attempts to sublimate possessions into a matrix of life (also others': v.21).

After a sense of incompleteness or even spiritual infirmity has driven us to a rich attunement with the codes of the soul and brought us face to face with Jesus (v.17) from Him we understand the secret of Joy.

Our Core remains restless if it does not infuse correspondences that fly over - precisely - the ancient ruler: possessions, which make one stagnate.

Despite the promised guarantees, they remain constipated, meaningless. On the contrary, by locking us into dependency they cause us to regress almost into the pre-human - robbing us of the delight of open, self-respecting relationships.

The Deep Roots want to change the vector of the swampy, situated self - 'as it should', well-integrated or self-referential - so that it dilates to include the You and the real whole (vv.28-30).

It is the Birth of the new woman and man, fathers and mothers of humanisation (in a living community, which accepts the conviviality of differences). That which verges on the divine condition.

Capable even of overturning positions (v.31). Eschatological sign and of the genuine Church, Nest and true Hearth.

It is Genesis in the authenticity of cosmic energies and inner powers, which are preparing stages of growth - elsewhere.

Gradually the warmth and reciprocity of an understanding relationship is created, the purpose of Love in what we undertake or do again; like the friendly warmth of a non-frigid Presence.

We experience a distinction filled with intoxication from which there is no turning back, because it places us in the very Life of the Eternal (v.17). The One who is missing (v.21).

As I strive to question myself or others, resources that were previously hidden and that I did not even know emerge.

With amazement, I experience a reality that gradually unfolds.... and of a Father who provides for me (v.27).

In such an extension, we learn to recognise the (decisive new) Subject of the spiritual journey: God's Design in being itself.Dream that leads... and despite the travails, the emotional storms, our contortions, it gradually reveals itself as innate: forthright, genuine, limpid; irrefutable, dazzling, flowing.

 

Inserted in the Community that hears the call to "go out", we move out of the tortuousness of retreats; and here is the Father's hundredfold in everything (vv.28-30).

Except for one thing: we are called to be Brothers, on an equal footing. There will be no hundred-to-one of 'fathers' (in the ancient sense), i.e. of conditioning controllers (vv. 29-30) who dictate their track and rhythm, like subordinates.

Then we will be at our centre, not because we are identified with the role, but rather chiselled in an astonishing way by facets of the Unknown.

A life of attachments blocks creativity. To cling to an idol, to allow oneself to be plagued or intimidated, to anchor oneself in fear of problems or pre-occupations is like creating a dark room.

Feeling programmable, already designed without a more... suffering ordinary or conformist opinions... excludes the vector of personal Novelty.

Those who allow themselves to be inhibited build an artificial dwelling, which is neither their home nor the tent of the world.

Conceiving that we can foresee global adventures, we become saddened, frightened; we do not grasp what is truly ours and others': it is what is revealed during a process - which becomes holy in the exodus from self and in the quality of creative relationships.

As Pope Francis said in Dublin: 'Docile to the Spirit and not based on tactical plans'.

It is the new genesis (under a new and unknown stimulus) that allows us to shift our attention from calculation to the brightness of the soul, from the brain to the eye, from reasoning to perception.

 

What should I "do" (v.17)? Embrace the Gift of difference and difference - even in my own inner faces, even opposites; that complete.

We transcend the One who is missing, but who reaches out to us. We do not manufacture, but receive, "inherit" (v.17) freely from the real that presses in.

"Where is the Insigne for me?". To become who we authentically are in the election of our sacred Source we must surrender ourselves to things, situations, even unusual emotional guests - treating them with dignity, just as they are.

Within this new ground is the secret of that elevation that rises above dilemmas, for each one.

With all its load of stimulating surprises and calls to flourish in humanising fullness, the Good lies in welcoming something that I don't already know what it is or will be, but It comes.

"The One is missing you!" - and the best way to esteem its contact is a bet, a matrix of life: transforming goods (of all kinds) into life and relationship.

 

 

Leave everything and experience the overthrow

(Mk 10:28-31)

 

According to the correct mentality - typical of Judaism - to receive the divine inheritance it was enough to observe the commandments (vv.17-20).

Jesus' proposal does not focus on the exchange of favours (Pharisaic automatism): it has breath, and rests on gratuitousness; it helps freedom - it is broader, without ballast.

For this... it inclines towards ecclesial poverty. Both the affluent and the apostles' conviction must be freed from the idol of opulence (a swampy force).

This is a sign that the mentality 'within' the communities had to be straightened out, even back then: it is not with security upstream that one can make an exodus to meet the One (v.21) in the heart; nor can the Church stay safe with the material contribution of the rich (v.26).

The path of love and the educational risk presuppose the path of adventurous sobriety, without which it is not possible to affect the watertight compartments of thought and society.

Contrary to devotions, the life of Faith does not require the offering to God of a modest or resigned sacrifice, but abandonment to the future to come.

Even as a matter of substance, it will force us to shift our gaze and reactivate unceasingly.

In this way, it will keep the disciples in the energy of undertaking, finally leaving no one with bowed heads. For here the cards are exchanged (v.31).

He does not want to rob us of anything: his friendly Presence is a consistent ferment, which wants to realise the absolute in each of us.

The detachment from things to expand and brighten the quality of the journey is the germ of a new sacredness, of another face of humanity and the world.

The concrete existence that flows from the proposal of Faith surpasses every religious model, and even extends the community, creating a family without boundaries - all brothers and sisters, without leaders for life.

We are no longer minors: we have full - not moderate - Hope.

Only the sharing of goods will stand: the fruit of providence and systematic giving - and there will be no needy, rather it will advance for others (the ideal already of Deut 15 - with no more cultural fences).

And no calculations of reciprocation: because there will be no selfishness or self-serving clubs (and greedy possession).Of course, Christ will be the choice of the poor, who have always dreamed of a reversal of the pyramid (v.31).

In Jesus' time, people's lives were in fact marked - trait by trait - by a double subjugation: Herod's politics and religious slavery.

The system of exploitation and repression was capillary and well-organised, and even the religious authorities had cunningly found a remunerative modus vivendi well established in the ganglia of the empire.

All this came at the cost of the disintegration of community and family life (facets of the ancient clan communion, now harassed by problems of material survival and increased individualism).

In a context of social collapse, many were forced to get by in a marginalised and excluded condition.

But in the assemblies of Jesus, the attitude of inclusion towards the marginalised, weak and shaky characterised them and made them stand out (gradually preferred) against all other groups.

At that time, there was no lack of various sects - even well-motivated ones - that wished to show an alternative model of life to the ruthlessness of current reality.

But e.g. the Essenes were legalists and purists, and lived apart; so did the Pharisees, traditionalists who abhorred 'defiled' people.

Even the Zealots resented the weak and indecisive crowd.

Those considered ignorant, cursed (for being unable to fulfil the prescriptions of the law) and in sin, were conversely welcome in Christian communities.

It was precisely the weightless, forcibly excluded even from the clan because of economic necessity, who finally found there refuge, warmth, understanding, help.

The Master himself had explicitly ordered anti-ambition and personal dispossession in favour of the sick and weak; of all those who were left behind.

Simplicity of life went hand in hand with sobriety in mission.

Indeed, the Lord advised the envoys to witness radical confidence in hospitality (offered by so many new 'family members').

Sense of adaptation and measure in the essentials were the indispensable character of evangelisation.

True witnesses of Christ, even today and with the passage of time, are content with the temporary - typical of pilgrims - and do not yearn for better accommodations in the future, moving from house to house (Mk 6:10).

In all this, the believers demonstrate the Presence of the fraternal and concrete Kingdom, in the midst - which overturns roles and perspectives, such as the habitual positions between women and men, young and old, or new and veterans (v.31).

 

Inserted in the fraternity that hears the call to "go out", we move from the tortuousness of retreats; and here is the Father's hundredfold in everything (vv.28-30).

Except for one thing: we are called to be on an equal footing. There will be no hundredfold of 'fathers' (in the ancient sense), i.e. of conditioning controllers (vv. 29-30) who dictate their track and rhythm, as to subordinates.

Then we will be at our centre, not because we are identified in the role, but rather chiselled in an astonishing way by the facets of the Mystery it touches, starting from within.

 

A life of attachments blocks creativity. To cling to an idol, to allow oneself to be plagued or intimidated, to anchor oneself in fear of problems or worries is like creating a dark room.

Feeling programmable, already designed without a more... to be subjected to ordinary or conformist opinions... excludes the vector of the unknown and all-personal Novelty.

Those who allow themselves to be inhibited by exclusive ethics build an artificial dwelling, which is neither their home nor the tent of the world.

Conceiving that we can foresee fruitful eccentricities or even global adventures, we shrink, we fear.

In fear we do not grasp what is truly ours and others': what is only revealed during a process, which becomes holy in the exodus from self and in the quality of creative relationships.

As Pope Francis said in Dublin: 'Docile to the Spirit and not based on tactical plans' that block life.

It is the new genesis under a new and unknown stimulus that allows us to shift attention from calculation to the brightness of the soul, from the brain to the eye, from reasoning to perception.

 

 

Empty Spirituality, or the Goods-Relation

 

From customs with limits to the Spirituality of goods-Relation

 

(Mt 19:16-22)

 

At the time of Jesus, there was a time of social collapse and disintegration of the communitarian dimension of life - in the past more related to family, clan and community.

Herod's policies ensured that the empire controlled the situation: a reality of maximum exploitation and severe economic and civil repression.

Religious impositions even ensured the subjugation of the consciences - and the spiritual authorities were happy to act as guarantors of this most covert form of slavery.The condition of total (civil and religious) subjugation of the people everywhere tended to diminish the sense of interpersonal and group fraternity.

There was no lack of severe conditions of social and cultural exclusion, which accentuated the bewilderment of the people, who were marginalised, homeless and without references - even religious ones.

Some movements attempted to reweave the lacerations and propose forms of shared life, certainly - but united by an idea of tormenting decontamination [Essenes, Pharisees, Zealots].

Jesus chooses the path of a decisive vital redemption, compared to the ideologies of the rediscovery of ascetic and customary purism, traditionalist nationalist fundamentalist.

For a radical fulfilment of the spirit of the Law, it was necessary to go beyond doctrines. They excite some, yet they do not erase our inner sense of emptiness.

 

The community of sons does not keep within the 'limits', and does not live apart; thus it does not accentuate the torments of imperfection, or the perception of incompleteness, nor the marginalisations - but rather welcomes them.

It does not feel endangered by contact with the realities that the external legalism of ancient devotion considered dangerous and cursed or in sin. It trembles for them.

The Church recognises the value of existential poverty: it is not enough to seek 'good things' without 'fire' within.

It confesses the richness not of everything that is already recognisable and static, but of new positions and differing relationships that open up the present and open up creative visions of the future.

Faith, in short, is not a popularly identified belief capable of accrediting roles, tasks and personalities - and their advantages, which everyone should depend on [!]

Nor can the dimension-wealth still rhyme with differentiation-security.

 

In vv.18-19 Jesus does not enumerate commandments that would make the interlocutor [as they used to say] 'more from near' to 'God alone', but criteria that bring us near and alongside sisters and brothers.

The honour reserved for the Father is not one of many forms of competitive love: the threshold is the neighbour.

The God of religions is a capricious child who demands the big piece of the cake, at snack time: but the Son does not deceive us with the most childish ideas of widespread beliefs.

Nor does he quote the first commandments, identifying the exalted Lord of his people.

Our hands embrace the timeless in concrete love.

They trigger the dynamisms that annihilate the torments of the least, and thus in an unthinkable way help us rediscover the meaning and joy of living - letting the world be reborn, far more than with the usual forms of insurance (sacralising titles and acquired economic levels).

Conscious living has to do not with customs and clichés [that produce alibis] but with another serenity and joy: the wonder of the unusual and of new degrees, places, states, relationships, situations.

There is no other richness that can fill our days, while there is only sadness (v.22) in the old bonds without humanity. They lower us all into an artificial mental and emotional reality.

To detach oneself from immediate calculation seems an absurd choice, out of the blue and destined to go wrong, but it is, on the contrary, the winning move that opens the door to the new Life of the Kingdom and to Happiness, which is accessed precisely when material goods are transformed into Relationship.

 

We know of no religious discipline that holds [and that can defy time, our emotions].

Only the risk for complete Life - ours, everyone's - acts as a spring to the will and impels full dedication.

The Tao (xiii) says: "To him who takes care of himself for the sake of the world, the world can be entrusted; to him who takes care of himself for the sake of the world, the world can be entrusted.

And Master Ho-shang Kung comments: "If I did not care for myself, I would have the spontaneity of the Tao in me: I would lightly rise up to the clouds, I would go in and out where there are no gaps, I would put the spirit in communication with the Tao. Then what misfortune would I have?".

Let us free ourselves from the plethora of wrong goals, which crush our paths, making them swampy. Let us also reflect well, then, on "that which is worthy" (v.17).

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

Thanks to spiritual guides, have you learnt to grasp your life from the Goodness of God, or to be lulled and content with what is there?

In the Church, have you found the criterion of Jesus realised, the strong desire for the Goodness of others too, capable of pointing a path? Or more attention to the things of the earth?