(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?