The reinterpretation of the liturgical colour purple
Mt 24:37-44 (24-51)
"Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (v. 42).
The key to understanding this passage is St Augustine's famous expression: "Timeo Dominum transeuntem" (I fear the Lord passing by). Incarnation is a direct link between reality and the divine condition.
The time of the person of Faith is like a season of waiting, but not of impermanence: rather, it is one of continuous capitalisation and reversal.
Nor is the moment of the Church configured as an institutional period, a period of pause - with a schedule and an expiry date.
Of course, it is not even an age of preparation based on our ideas, but rather of welcoming the Kingdom, which comes in its Appeal - today with very clear proposals (even in its subtractions).
We are called to be ready at all times, like a thief in the night... who wants to take away something we believe is absolutely ours, but to which we have become too attached.
From the earliest generations of believers, groups of visionaries arose - unfortunately misguided - connected to an idea of imminent catastrophe.
But the expectation of the sudden return of a Messiah who was to put an end to injustice and bring about the Last Judgement was a common expectation of those who desired the inauguration of a new phase in history.
However, nowhere in the Gospels is it written that Jesus must 'return', as if he had gone away. He comes, he arrives; he does not 'return'.
In the New Testament, the Risen One is the Coming One [‘o Erchòmenos], that is, the One who bursts in, who incessantly makes himself Present.
The end of the world and the return of the Lord on a white cloud is a suggestion that is still used today to intimidate simple people and condition them to fanatical groups. Social networks are full of it.
The decisive point in life is to notice, to perceive the Presence of Someone within something: in the simple things of life, in events of liberation; even in the drama of rebirth from global crisis.
In this way, no form of alienation comes from the Gospels. Christ is 'with us' at all times, in our commitment to nature, to cultures, to the life of all.
The experience of completeness is not given in a particular time, but, for example, the spirit of selflessness that spreads and already renews relationships and things remains a guarantee of the Kingdom - that is, of the new world that the Church is called to proclaim and build - including it with open arms, step by step.
Every moment is a good moment to sharpen our vision: to notice and perceive opportunities; to open our eyes or shift our gaze in order to grasp the Coming of the Lord and intuit it as a source of Hope.
In the Eucharist, we proclaim the ever-new Presence of the Lord, because Life in Christ is anticipation and preparation for the Encounter [which already brings the bread that our soul and the world need].
Every moment, even the dark ones, is a penetrating Call and an opportunity for response, contact, and deep nourishment; not a source of permanent torment and terror.
Security is found in insecurity
What kind of Advent-Coming is this? Why is it associated with the idea of cataclysms? Talking about a 'flood' does not seem like good news.
In the observant tradition of all peoples, insecurity is perceived as a disadvantage, and teachers note the progress of spiritual life when a soul with a mixed and disordered existence overcomes its turmoil for an ideal of 'coherent calm', in favour of order and tranquillity.
Conditioned by pious indoctrination, homologated to knowing how to 'be in society' and to the idea of Victory preceding Peace, we wait to meet our Lord in dark moments, but so that he may restore our fortune.
We wait for him in times of economic hardship, so that he may give us an advantage with a win; in humiliating events, to help us get back on our feet.
In times of danger, we want Him at least to give us the strength to turn the situation around; in times of illness, we imagine He will restore our youthful vigour; in times of confusion, we want Him to communicate relaxation (or better still, triumph).
In the Gospels, Jesus tries to make his followers understand where and when to truly encounter God. But while waiting for his 'promises', we find it difficult to go beyond the superficial.
We project our ideas onto religion too - but Faith is detached from this. It evaluates with an opposite mentality.
Sometimes we fail to meet a friend because we get the time and place of the appointment wrong. The same thing happens with God.
The insecurity proclaimed by the Gospels is like a tsunami, but it is Good News!
Although we often tend to give a sense of permanence to everything we have experienced and believed ourselves to 'be', we repeatedly experience that our certainties change - just like the waves.
Jesus teaches that the doubt that truly destroys his Call arises from our identification [roles, characters, tasks] that attempts to balance the waves of life.
Instead, the essence of each of us springs from a lively Source, which does what it must every day.
Habits, external opinions, reassuring ways of being with people and dealing with situations cut off the richness of our precious nuances, a large part of our very faces.
And the births and rejuvenations that belong to us.
The inner impact of the many stimuli of the Source of being insinuates an inevitable and fruitful imbalance - which we risk interpreting negatively, precisely as a nuisance.
In the mind of the man who avoids oscillations, that kind of wave that comes to make us think about ancient things (taken for granted) is immediately identified as a danger to our identity.
Providence itself - the wave that sees ahead - is perhaps branded with unease, sometimes even by those who 'advise' us.
In the ideal man, as chiselled by the most normalising moralisms, the swampy water of impulses is what dirties and drags us down to earth; and Heaven would always be clear and pure above the earth.
Instead, it is often an upstream cultural identification that produces insecurity!
All this, much more than the objective reality that comes into play to refresh our soul and make it as light as sea foam (crudely embodied).
We must dive into the waves, we must know the waves of the tides, because our anchor is not in external things.
The shell of appearances condemns us to the worst fluctuation, to the least advantageous of insecurities: believing that by maintaining economic levels or prestige, by reaching that goal, by climbing the ladder of titles, we will avoid frustration, we will escape anxiety, we will finally be without conflict and even happy.
But in this way our soul loses its breath, it does not strengthen itself, nor does it fly towards unknown territories; it settles in the most conformist enclosure.
Instead, we are alive, and the youth that conquers the Kingdom comes from chaos.
Missionaries are animated by this certainty: the best stability is instability: that 'flood' where no two waves are alike.
In short, based on the Word of God, even the liturgical colour purple should perhaps be reinterpreted (in a lively and striking way) - much more deeply than is taken for granted.
To internalise and live the message:
Advent: why do you want the Lord to come and be present in your life?
Son of Man
'Son of Man' is therefore not a 'religious' or selective title, but an opportunity for all those who adhere to the Lord's proposal of life and reinterpret it creatively.
They overcome their fixed and natural boundaries, making room for the Gift; welcoming from God the fullness of being, in his new, unrepeatable paths.
Feeling totally and undeservedly loved, they discover other facets, change the way they are with themselves, and can grow: they fulfil themselves, blossom and radiate the completeness they have received.
By moving away from the poor or static idea we have of ourselves - a serious problem in many sensitive and devoted souls - even the relational personality can begin to imagine.
And dream, discovering that they can no longer give weight to those who want to influence their personal journey (in the fullness of being and vocation).
Those who activate the idea that they can do it then transmit the power of the Spirit they have received and welcomed, and the world flourishes.
Emanating a different atmosphere, the person integrated in their even opposing sides feels awareness arise, creates projects, emits and attracts other energies; activates them.
God wants to extend the sphere in which he 'reigns' - relating in an interpersonal way - to all humanity... A Church without visible boundaries, which will begin with the 'Son of Man' (a figure not exclusive to Jesus).
This universalistic perspective emerges, among other things, from Jesus' presentation of himself not only as the 'Son of David' but as the 'Son of Man' (Mark 10:33). The title 'Son of Man', in the language of Jewish apocalyptic literature inspired by the vision of history in the Book of the Prophet Daniel (cf. 7:13-14), refers to the figure who comes 'with the clouds of heaven' (v. 13) and is an image that heralds a completely new kingdom, a kingdom supported not by human powers, but by the true power that comes from God. Jesus uses this rich and complex expression and refers it to himself to manifest the true character of his messianism, as a mission destined for the whole of humanity and for every human being, overcoming all ethnic, national and religious particularism. And it is precisely in following Jesus, in allowing oneself to be drawn into his humanity and thus into communion with God, that one enters this new kingdom, which the Church proclaims and anticipates, and which overcomes fragmentation and dispersion.
[Pope Benedict, Consistory, 24 November 2012]
With the image of the Son of Man, the prophet Daniel already wanted to indicate a reversal of the criteria of authenticity (human and divine): a man or a people, a leader, finally with a heart of flesh instead of a beast.
In the icon of the 'Son of Man', the evangelists wish to reveal and trigger the triumph of the human over the inhuman, the gradual disappearance of everything that blocks the communication of full life.
The People who shine in a divine way are no longer entangled in fears or hysteria, but rather bring to the fore all their varied potential for love and the effusion of life.
The 'Son of Man' - a possible reality - is anyone who reaches fulfilment, the flowering of their capacity to be, in the extension of relationships... entering into harmony with the sphere of God the Creator, Lover of life.
They do so in their varied facets, and merge with Him - becoming One. Creating abundance.
The 'Son of Man' is the man who behaves on earth as God himself would, who makes the divine and its power present in history.
He can therefore afford to replace the sombre seriousness of being pious and submissive with the wise light-heartedness that makes everything light.
The 'Son of Man' represents the highest form of humanity, the Person par excellence - who becomes liberating rather than oppressive.
The consequences are unimaginable, because each of us in Christ (and for our brothers and sisters) no longer has dead ends to retrace.
'Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming' (Matthew 24:42). Jesus, who came among us at Christmas and will return in glory at the end of time, never tires of visiting us continually, in the events of every day. He asks us and warns us to wait for him by keeping watch, because his coming cannot be planned or predicted, but will be sudden and unpredictable. Only those who are awake will not be caught off guard. He warns us not to let what happened in Noah's time happen to us, when people were eating and drinking carefree and were caught unprepared by the flood (cf. Mt 24:37-38). What does the Lord want us to understand with this warning, if not that we must not allow ourselves to be absorbed by material realities and concerns to the point of becoming ensnared?
"Watch therefore..." Let us listen to Jesus' invitation in the Gospel and prepare ourselves to relive with faith the mystery of the birth of the Redeemer, who filled the universe with joy; let us prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord in his incessant coming to meet us in the events of life, in joy and in sorrow, in health and in sickness; let us prepare ourselves to meet him in his final and definitive coming. His passing is always a source of peace, and if suffering, the legacy of human nature, sometimes becomes almost unbearable, with the coming of the Saviour "suffering - without ceasing to be suffering - nevertheless becomes a song of praise" (Encyclical Spe salvi, 37).
[Pope Benedict, homily at the Roman hospital of St John the Baptist, 2 December 2007]
