Two Names of God

(Lk 4:24-30)

 

Jesus is annoying and generates suspicion in those who love external schemes, because he proclaims only Jubilee, rather than harsh confrontation and revenge.

In the synagogue, his ‘village’ is perplexed by this overly understanding love - just what we need.

The place of worship is where less aware believers have been educated in reverse!

Their grumpy character is the sour fruit of a pounding religiosity, which denies the right to express ideas and feelings.

The "synagogal" code has produced fake faithfuls, conditioned by a disharmonious and split personality.

Even today and from an early age, that intimate laceration manifests itself in the excess of control over openness to others.

Consequence: an accentuation of youth uncertainty - under which who knows what hatches - and a rigid adult character.

In short, the hammering that does not make the leap of Faith blocks us, prevents from understanding, and pollutes all of life.

 

Even in the time of Jesus, archaic teaching sharpened nationalisms, the very perception of trauma or violations, and paradoxically precisely the caged situations from which one wanted to escape.

Exclusive spirituality: it’s empty - whether crude or sophisticated.

Selective thinking is the worst disease of worldviews, which are then always telling us ‘how we should be’.

 

Faced with edgy convictions and conventicular illusions, the Prophet marks distance; he works to spread awareness, not reassuring images - nor disembodied ideas.

But the critical heralds violently irritate the crowd of regulars, who suddenly pass from a sort of curiosity to vengeful indignation.

As in the village, so - we read in watermark - in the Holy City [Mount Sion], from which they immediately want to throw you down (Lk 4:29). Wherever you talk about a real person and eternal dreams.

 

In the hostility that surrounds them, the intimates of the Lord openly challenge the normalized beliefs - acquired from the environment and not reworked.

For them it’s not only the analogy calculated to a petty side dish that counts. They see other goals and don't just want to “get there”.

If they are overwhelmed, they leave behind that trail of intuitions that sooner or later will make everyone reflect.

Therefore in his Friends it is the Risen who escapes from death and resumes the journey, crossing those who want to kill him (v.30).

 

At all times, the witnesses make us think: they do not seek compliments and pleasant results, but recover ‘opposite sides’ and accept the happiness of others.

They know that Uniqueness must run its course: it will be wealth for everyone, and on this point they do not allow themselves to be inhibited.

Based on the Father's personal experience, the inspired faithfuls value different approaches.

They create an unknown esteem, advocating new attitudes - different ways of relating to God.

Not, to add proselytes and consider themselves indispensable.

 

Even if «at home» (v.24: own townspeople, own country) they are uncomfortable characters for the ratified mentality, the nobody-Prophets make Jesus' Personalism survive, snatching it from those who want it to be dormant and kidnapped.

Like him, at the risk of unpopularity and without begging for approval.

 

With the scars of what has gone away, for a new Journey.

 

 

[Monday 3rd wk. in Lent, March 24, 2025]

Lk 4:24-30 (16-37)

 

Jesus' transgressions and ours (reinforcing the plot)

(Lk 4:14-22)

 

"The Spirit of the Lord was upon me, therefore he anointed me to proclaim the Good News to the poor" (Lk 4:18).

 

In ancient Israel, the patriarchal family, clan and community were the basis of social coexistence.

They guaranteed the transmission of the identity of the people and provided protection for the afflicted.

Defending the clan was also a concrete way of confirming the First Covenant.

But at the time of Jesus, Galilee suffered both the segregation dictated by Herod Antipas' policy and the oppression of official religiosity.

The ruler's spineless collaborationism had increased the number of homeless and unemployed.

The political and economic situation forced people to retreat into material and individual problems or those of a small family.

At one time, the identity glue of clan and community guaranteed a (domestic) character of a nation of solidarity, expressed in the defence and relief given to the less well-off of the people.

Now, this fraternal bond was weakened, a little congealed, almost contradicted - also due to the strict attitude of the religious authorities, fundamentalist and lovers of a saccharine purism, opposed to mixing with the less well-off classes.

The Law [written and oral] ended up being used not to favour the welcoming of the marginalised and needy, but to accentuate detachment and ghettoisation.

Situations that were leading to the collapse of the least protected sections of the population.

In short, traditional devotion - a lover of the alliance between throne and altar - instead of strengthening the sense of community was being used to accentuate hierarchies; as a weapon that legitimised a whole mentality of exclusions (and confirmed the imperial logic of dividi et impera).

 

Instead, Jesus wants to return to the Father's Dream: the ineliminable one of fraternity, the only seal to salvation history.

That is why his non-avoidable criterion was to link the Word of God to the life of the people, and in this way overcome divisions.

Thus, according to Lk, the first time Jesus enters a synagogue he messes up.

He does not go there to pray, but to teach what God's Grace (undefiled by chicanery and false teachings) is in the real existence of people.

He chooses a passage that precisely reflects the situation of the people of Galilee, oppressed by the power of the rulers, who were making the weak suffer confusion and poverty.

But his first Reading does not take into account the liturgical calendar.

Then he dares to preach in his own way and personalising the passage from Isaiah, from which he allows himself to censor the verse announcing God's vengeance.

Then he does not even proclaim the expected passage of the Law.

And he poses as if he were the master of the place of worship - in reality he is: the Risen One who 'sits' is teaching his [still Judaizing] people.

Moreover - we understand from the tone of the Gospel passage - for the Son of God the Spirit is not revealed in the extraordinary phenomena of the cosmos, but in the Year of Grace ("a year acceptable to the Lord": v.19).

The new energy that creates the authentic man is divine because it is personal and social.

This is the platform that works the turning point.

It becomes an engine, a motive and context, for a transformation of the soul and of relationships - at that time weighed down by servility, even theological [of merits].

 

In a warp of vital relationships, the better understanding of the Gift becomes a springboard for a harmonious future of liberation and justice.

Christ believes that the Father's Kingdom arises by making the present, then mired in oppression, anguish and slavery, grow from within.

Says the Tao Tê Ching (XLVI): "When the Way is in force in the world, swift horses are sent to fertilise the fields".

The emancipation offered by the Spirit is addressed not to the great, but precisely to those who suffer forms of need, defect and penury: in Jesus... now all open to the jubilee figure of the new Creation.

In short, there seems to be total antagonism and unsuitability between the Lord and the practitioners of traditional religion - heavy-handed, selective, devoted to legalisms and reprisals; pyramidal, with no way out.

Obviously, both leaders and customaries ask themselves - on a ritual and venerable basis: is it possible that the divine likeness could manifest itself in a man who is considerate towards the less affluent, who disregards official customs, does not believe in reprisals, and displays forms of uncontrolled spontaneity?

It is a reminder to us. The person of authentic Faith does not allow himself to be conditioned by habitual, useless and quiet conformities.

The common thought - habituated and agreed upon but subtly competitive - becomes a backwards energy, too normal and swampy; not propulsive for the personal and social soul. 

If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to be accompanied by the Dream of a super-eminent gestation from the Father, we will be animated through the royal and sacred Presence that orients us to fly over repetitions, or selections, marginalisations and fallacious recriminations.

As if we move our being into a horizon and a world of friendly relations that then acts as a magnet to reality and anticipates the future.

 

Like the Master and Lord, instead of reasoning with induced thoughts and allowing ourselves to be sequestered by the heaviness of rejections and fears, let us begin to think with the images of personal Vocation, with the empathic codes of our bursting Calling.

The unknown evolutionary resources that are triggered, immediately unravel a network of paths that the "locals" may not like, but avoid the perennial conflict with missionary identity and character.

The unrepeatable and wide-meshed Vision-Relation (v.18a) - without reduction - then becomes strategic, because it possesses within itself the call of the Quintessence, and all the resources to solve the real problems.

 

To listen to the proclamation of the Gospels (v.18b) is to listen to the echo of oneself and of the little people: an intimate and social choice.

And to be in it without the dead leaves of one-sidedness - to wander freely in that same Proclamation; not neglecting precious parts of oneself, nor amputating eccentricities, or the intuition proper to the subordinate classes.

This is to be able to manifest the quiet Root (but in its energetic state), our Character (in the lovable, non-separatist Friend) - to avoid stultifying it with another bondage.

All in the instinct to be and do happy, never allowing ourselves to be imprisoned by the craving for security on the side; stagnant pursuit.

 

The Kingdom in the Spirit (cf. vv.14.18) - who knows what we need - has ceased to be a goal of mere futurity.

It is the surprise that Christ arouses in us around his proposal with an extra gear.

 

He does not neglect us: he extinguishes accusatory brooding and creatively redesigns.

He gives birth again and motivates, recovers dispersions, and strengthens the plot.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

How do I connect the Faith with the cultural and social situation?

What is Christ's Today with your Today, in the Spirit?

What is your form of apostolate that frees your brothers and sisters from the debasement of their dignity and promotes them?

 

 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (et vult Cubam)

 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me and sent me forth to proclaim a glad tidings" (Luke 4: 18). Every minister of God must make these words spoken by Jesus of Nazareth his own life. Therefore, as I stand here among you, I want to bring you the good news of hope in God. As a servant of the Gospel, I bring you this message of love and solidarity that Jesus Christ, with his coming, offers to people of all times. It is neither an ideology nor a new economic or political system, but a path of peace, justice and authentic freedom.

4. The ideological and economic systems that have succeeded one another in recent centuries have often emphasised confrontation as a method, since they contained in their programmes the seeds of opposition and disunity. This has deeply conditioned the conception of man and relations with others. Some of these systems also claimed to reduce religion to the merely individual sphere, stripping it of any social influence or relevance. In this sense, it is worth remembering that a modern state cannot make atheism or religion one of its political orders. The State, far from any fanaticism or extreme secularism, must promote a serene social climate and adequate legislation that allows each person and each religious denomination to live their faith freely, express it in the spheres of public life and be able to count on sufficient means and space to offer their spiritual, moral and civic riches to the life of the nation.

On the other hand, in various places, a form of capitalist neo-liberalism is developing that subordinates the human person and conditions the development of peoples to the blind forces of the market, burdening the less favoured peoples with unbearable burdens from its centres of power. Thus it often happens that unsustainable economic programmes are imposed on nations as a condition for receiving new aid. In this way we witness, in the concert of nations, the exaggerated enrichment of a few at the price of the growing impoverishment of the many, so that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

5. Dear brothers: the Church is a teacher in humanity. Therefore, in the face of these systems, she proposes the culture of love and life, restoring to humanity the hope and transforming power of love, lived in the unity willed by Christ. This requires a path of reconciliation, dialogue and fraternal acceptance of one's neighbour, whoever he or she may be. This can be called the social Gospel of the Church.

The Church, in carrying out its mission, proposes to the world a new justice, the justice of the Kingdom of God (cf. Mt 6:33). On several occasions I have referred to social issues. It is necessary to keep talking about them as long as there is injustice in the world, however small it may be, since otherwise the Church would not prove faithful to the mission entrusted to her by Jesus Christ. What is at stake is man, the person in the flesh. Even if times and circumstances change, there are always people who need the voice of the Church to acknowledge their anguish, pain and misery. Those who find themselves in such situations can be assured that they will not be defrauded, for the Church is with them and the Pope embraces, with his heart and his word of encouragement, all those who suffer injustice.

(John Paul II, after being applauded at length, added)

I am not against applause, because when you applaud the Pope can rest a little.

The teachings of Jesus retain their vigour intact on the threshold of the year 2000. They are valid for all of you, my dear brothers. In the search for the justice of the Kingdom, we cannot stop in the face of difficulties and misunderstandings. If the Master's invitation to justice, service and love is accepted as Good News, then hearts are enlarged, criteria are transformed and the culture of love and life is born. This is the great change that society awaits and needs; it can only be achieved if first the conversion of each person's heart takes place as a condition for the necessary changes in the structures of society.

6. "The Spirit of the Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives (...) to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Lk 4:18). The good news of Jesus must be accompanied by a proclamation of freedom, based on the solid foundation of truth: "If you remain faithful to my word, you will indeed be my disciples; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8: 31-32). The truth to which Jesus refers is not just the intellectual understanding of reality, but the truth about man and his transcendent condition, his rights and duties, his greatness and limitations. It is the same truth that Jesus proclaimed with his life, reaffirmed before Pilate and, by his silence, before Herod; it is the same truth that led him to the salvific cross and glorious resurrection.

Freedom that is not grounded in truth conditions man to such an extent that it sometimes makes him the object rather than the subject of the social, cultural, economic and political context, leaving him almost totally deprived of initiative with regard to personal development. At other times, this freedom is individualistic and, taking no account of the freedom of others, locks man into his own selfishness. The conquest of freedom in responsibility is an unavoidable task for every person. For Christians, the freedom of God's children is not only a gift and a task; its attainment also implies an invaluable witness and a genuine contribution to the liberation of the entire human race. This liberation is not reduced to social and political aspects, but reaches its fullness in the exercise of freedom of conscience, the basis and foundation of other human rights.

(Responding to the invocation raised by the crowd: "The Pope lives and wants us all to be free!", John Paul II added:)

Yes, he lives with that freedom to which Christ has set you free.

For many of today's political and economic systems, the greatest challenge continues to be to combine freedom and social justice, freedom and solidarity, without any of them being relegated to a lower level. In this sense, the Social Doctrine of the Church constitutes an effort of reflection and a proposal that seeks to enlighten and reconcile the relationship between the inalienable rights of every man and social needs, so that the person may fulfil his deepest aspirations and his own integral realisation according to his condition as a child of God and citizen. Consequently, the Catholic laity must contribute to this realisation through the application of the Church's social teachings in the various environments, open to all people of good will.

7. In the Gospel proclaimed today, justice appears intimately linked to truth. This is also observed in the lucid thinking of the Fathers of the Fatherland. The Servant of God Father Félix Varela, animated by Christian faith and fidelity to his priestly ministry, sowed in the hearts of the Cuban people the seeds of justice and freedom that he dreamed of seeing germinate in a free and independent Cuba. 

José Martí's doctrine of love among all men has profoundly evangelical roots, thus overcoming the false conflict between faith in God and love and service to the homeland. Martí writes: 'Pure, unselfish, persecuted, martyred, poetic and simple, the religion of the Nazarene has seduced all honest men... Every people needs to be religious. It must be so not only in its essence, but also for its utility.... A non-religious people is doomed to die, for nothing in it nourishes virtue. Human injustice despises it; it is necessary for heavenly justice to guarantee it'.

As you know, Cuba possesses a Christian soul, and this has led it to have a universal vocation. Called to overcome its isolation, it must open up to the world, and the world must draw closer to Cuba, to its people, to its children, who undoubtedly represent its greatest wealth. The time has come to embark on the new paths that the times of renewal in which we live demand, as we approach the Third Millennium of the Christian era!

8. Dear brothers: God has blessed this people with authentic formators of the national conscience, clear and firm exponents of the Christian faith, which is the most valid support of virtue and love. Today the Bishops, together with priests, consecrated men and women and the lay faithful, strive to build bridges to bring minds and hearts closer together, propitiating and consolidating peace, preparing the civilisation of love and justice. I am here among you as a messenger of truth and hope. That is why I wish to repeat my appeal to let Jesus Christ enlighten you, to accept without reserve the splendour of his truth, so that all may follow the path of unity through love and solidarity, avoiding exclusion, isolation and confrontation, which are contrary to the will of the God-Love.

May the Holy Spirit enlighten with his gifts all those who have different responsibilities towards this people, whom I hold in my heart. May the "Virgen de la Caridad de El Cobre", Queen of Cuba, obtain for her children the gifts of peace, progress and happiness.

This wind today is very significant, because the wind symbolises the Holy Spirit. "Spiritus spirat ubi vult, Spiritus vult spirare in Cuba". The last words are in Latin because Cuba also belongs to the Latin tradition. Latin America, Latin Cuba, Latin language! "Spiritus spirat ubi vult et vult Cubam'. Goodbye.

(John Paul II, homily "José Martí" Square Havana 25 January 1998)

 

 

Person, extemporaneity, synagogues

 

Two Names of God

(Lk 4:21-30)

 

Today's Gospel - taken from the fourth chapter of St Luke - is a continuation of last Sunday's Gospel. We are still in the synagogue in Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up and where everyone knew him and his family. Now, after a period of absence, He has returned in a new way: during the Sabbath liturgy, He reads a prophecy from Isaiah about the Messiah and announces its fulfilment, implying that the word refers to Him, that Isaiah has spoken of Him. This fact provokes the bewilderment of the Nazarenes: on the one hand, "all bore witness to him and were amazed at the words of grace that came out of his mouth" (Lk 4:22); St Mark reports that many said: "Where do these things come from him? And what wisdom is this that has been given him?" (6:2). On the other hand, however, his countrymen know him all too well: 'He is one like us', they say, 'His pretension can only be presumption' (cf. The Infancy of Jesus, 11). "Is not this the son of Joseph?" (Lk 4:22), as if to say: a carpenter from Nazareth, what aspirations can he have?

Precisely knowing this closure, which confirms the proverb "no prophet is welcome in his own country", Jesus addresses the people in the synagogue with words that sound like a provocation. He mentions two miracles performed by the great prophets Elijah and Elisha in favour of non-Israelites, to show that sometimes there is more faith outside Israel. At that point the reaction is unanimous: everyone gets up and throws him out, and even tries to throw him off a cliff, but he calmly sovereignly passes through the angry people and leaves. At this point the question arises: why did Jesus want to provoke this rupture? At first, the people admired him, and perhaps he could have obtained some consensus... But this is precisely the point: Jesus did not come to seek the consensus of men, but - as he will say at the end to Pilate - to "bear witness to the truth" (Jn 18:37). The true prophet does not obey anyone other than God and puts himself at the service of the truth, ready to pay for it himself. It is true that Jesus is the prophet of love, but love has its own truth. Indeed, love and truth are two names of the same reality, two names of God. Today's liturgy also resounds with these words of St Paul: "Charity ... does not boast, is not puffed up with pride, is not disrespectful, does not seek its own interest, is not angry, does not take account of evil received, does not rejoice in injustice, but rejoices in the truth" (1 Cor 13:4-6). Believing in God means renouncing one's prejudices and accepting the concrete face in which He revealed Himself: the man Jesus of Nazareth. And this way also leads to recognising and serving Him in others.

In this, Mary's attitude is illuminating. Who more than she was familiar with the humanity of Jesus? But she was never as scandalised by it as the people of Nazareth. She kept the mystery in her heart and knew how to welcome it again and again, on the path of faith, until the night of the Cross and the full light of the Resurrection. May Mary also help us to tread this path with fidelity and joy.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 3 February 2013].

 

Jesus is annoying and generates suspicion in those who love external schemes, because he proclaims only Jubilee, instead of harsh confrontation and vengeance.

In the synagogue his village is puzzled by this overly understanding love - just what we need.

The place of worship is where believers have been brought up backwards!

Their grumpy character is the unripe fruit of a hammering religiosity, which denies the right to express ideas and feelings.

The 'synagogal' code has produced fake believers, conditioned by a disharmonious and split personality.

Even today and from an early age, this intimate laceration manifests itself in the over-controlling of openness to others.

Consequence: an accentuation of youthful uncertainty - under which who knows what smoulders - and a rigid character as adults.

In short, the religious hammering that does not make the leap of faith blocks us, prevents us from understanding, and pollutes our whole life.

 

Even in Jesus' time, archaic teaching exacerbated nationalism, the very perception of trauma or violation, and paradoxically the very caged situations from which one wanted to get out.

Exclusive spirituality: it is empty - crude or sophisticated.

Selective thinking is the worst disease of worldviews - which are then always telling us how we should be.

So in concrete life not a few believers prefer to have friends without conformist blindness or the same bonds of belonging.

 

On closer inspection, even the most devout lay realities manifest a pronounced and strange dichotomy of relationships - tribal and otherwise.

Pope Francis expressed it crisply:

"It is a scandal that of people who go to church, who are there every day and then live hating others and speaking ill of people: better to live as an atheist than to give a counter-witness to being a Christian".

The real world awakens and stimulates flexibility of standards, it does not inculcate some old-fashioned, hypnosis-like truism.

Today's global reality helps to blunt the edges of conventicle [which have their regurgitations, in terms of seduction and sucking].

In the face of such beliefs and illusions, the Prophet marks distance; he works to spread awareness, not reassuring images - nor disembodied ideas.

But the critical heralds violently irritate the crowd of regulars, who suddenly turn from curiosity to vengeful indignation.

As in the small town, so - we read in a watermark - in the Holy City [Mount Zion] from which they immediately want to throw you down (Lk 4:29).

Wherever there is talk of a real person and eternal dreams: his own, not others'.

 

In the hostility that surrounds them, the Lord's intimates openly challenge normalised beliefs, acquired from the environment and not reworked.

For them, it is not only the calculated analogy to a mean outline that counts. They see other goals and do not just want to 'get there'.

If they are overwhelmed, they leave behind them that trail of intuition that will sooner or later make both harmful clansmen and useless opportunists reflect.

Thus, in Friends and Brothers it is the Risen One himself who escapes. And he resumes the path, crossing those who want to do him in (v. 30) for reasons of self-interest or neighbourhood advantage.

 

At all times, the witnesses make one think: they do not seek compliments and pleasant results, but recover the opposite sides and accept the happiness of others.

They know that Oneness must run its course: it will be wealth for all, and on this point they do not let themselves be inhibited by nomenclature.

Although surrounded by the envious and deadly hatred of cunning idiots and established synagogues, they proclaim Love in Truth - neither burine hoaxes (approved as empty) nor ulterior motives (solid utility).

In fact, without milking and shearing the uninformed, such missionaries give impetus to the courage and growth of others, to the autonomy of choices.

All this, fostering the coexistence of the invisible and despised; in an atmosphere of understanding and spontaneity. 

They love the luxuriance of life, so they discriminate between religion and Faith: they do not stand as repeaters of doctrines, prescriptions, customs.

Based on the Father's personal experience, the inspired faithful value different approaches, creating an unknown esteem.

They confront young sectarian monsters [the Pontiff would say], old marpions and their fences, with an open face, advocating new attitudes - different ways of relating to God.

Not to add proselytes and consider themselves indispensable.

Even though 'at home' (v. 24) they are inconvenient characters for the ratified mentality, the none-Prophets make Jesus' personalism survive, wrenching it from those who want it dormant and sequestered.

Like Him, at the risk of unpopularity and without begging for approval.

 

With the scars of what is gone, for a new Journey.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

In the 'homeland' are you considered a local child, or a prophet? A ratified character, or inconvenient? In fashion, or unpopular?

Is your testimony transgressive or conformist? Does it make the personalism of Jesus survive, snatching it from those who want it dormant and sequestered?

 

 

God wants faith, they want miracles: God for their own benefit

Last Sunday, the liturgy had proposed to us the episode in the synagogue of Nazareth, where Jesus reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah and at the end reveals that those words are fulfilled "today", in Him. Jesus presents Himself as the one on whom the Spirit of the Lord has rested, the Holy Spirit who consecrated Him and sent Him to fulfil the mission of salvation on behalf of humanity. Today's Gospel (cf. Lk 4:21-30) is the continuation of that story and shows us the amazement of his fellow citizens at seeing that one of their countrymen, "the son of Joseph" (v. 22), claims to be the Christ, the Father's envoy.

Jesus, with his ability to penetrate minds and hearts, immediately understands what his countrymen think. They think that, since He is one of them, He must prove this strange "claim" of His by performing miracles there, in Nazareth, as He did in the neighbouring countries (cf. v. 23). But Jesus does not want and cannot accept this logic, because it does not correspond to God's plan: God wants faith, they want miracles, signs; God wants to save everyone, and they want a Messiah for their own benefit. And to explain God's logic, Jesus brings the example of two great ancient prophets: Elijah and Elisha, whom God had sent to heal and save people who were not Jewish, from other peoples, but who had trusted his word.

Faced with this invitation to open their hearts to the gratuitousness and universality of salvation, the citizens of Nazareth rebel, and even assume an aggressive attitude, which degenerates to the point that "they got up and drove him out of the city and led him to the edge of the mountain [...], to throw him down" (v. 29). The admiration of the first moment turned into an aggression, a rebellion against Him.

And this Gospel shows us that Jesus' public ministry begins with a rejection and a threat of death, paradoxically precisely from his fellow citizens. Jesus, in living the mission entrusted to him by the Father, knows well that he must face fatigue, rejection, persecution and defeat. A price that, yesterday as today, authentic prophecy is called upon to pay. The harsh rejection, however, does not discourage Jesus, nor does it stop the journey and fruitfulness of his prophetic action. He goes on his way (cf. v. 30), trusting in the Father's love.

Even today, the world needs to see in the Lord's disciples prophets, that is, people who are courageous and persevering in responding to the Christian vocation. People who follow the 'thrust' of the Holy Spirit, who sends them to announce hope and salvation to the poor and excluded; people who follow the logic of faith and not of miracles; people dedicated to the service of all, without privileges and exclusions. In short: people who are open to accepting the Father's will within themselves and are committed to faithfully witnessing it to others.

Let us pray to Mary Most Holy, that we may grow and walk in the same apostolic ardour for the Kingdom of God that animated Jesus' mission.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 3 February 2019].

 

 

Liberation from quietism and automatic mentality

(Lk 4:31-37)

 

In the third Gospel, the first signs of the Lord are the quiet escape from death threats (waved by his people!) and the healing of the possessed.

In such a way of narrating the story of Jesus, Lk indicates the priorities that his communities were living: first of all, there was a need to suspend the intimate struggles, inculcated by the Judaizing tradition and its 'knowing how to be in the world'.

In the stubborn and conformist village of Nazareth, the Master is unable to communicate his newness, and is forced to change residence.

He does not resign, indeed: Capernaum was at the crossroads of important roads, which facilitated contact and dissemination. 

Among people from all walks of life, the Son of God wanted to create a consciousness that was highly critical of the standardised doctrines of religious leaders.

He did not mechanically quote the - modest - teachings of the authorities, but started from his own life experience and living relationship with the Father.

He did not seek support, neither for safe living nor for the proclamation - thus he created clear minds and an unusual quiver.

In this way, he suspended in souls the usual doubts of conscience, the usual battles inoculated by the customary-doctrinal-moral cloak, and his inner lacerations.

In a transparent and totally non-artificial manner, Christ [in his] still escapes evil and struggles against the plagiarising, reductive forces of our personality.

In the mentality of automatisms devoid of personal faith, it seemed at the time that one almost had to submit to the powers of external conviction.

All this to avoid being marginalised by the 'nation' [and by 'groups' governed by conformity].

This also applies to us.

The duty to participate in collective rituals - here the Sabbath in the synagogue - risks dampening the intimate nostalgia for "ourselves" that provides nourishment for vocational exceptionality.

Originality in the history of salvation which, on the contrary, we could become, without the ball and chain of certain rules of quiet living, to the minimum - rhythm of customary social moments and symbolic days [sometimes emptied of meaning].

(All in the scruffy, mechanical ways that we know by heart, and no longer want, because we feel they do not make us reach a higher level).

The Master in us still faces the power that reduces people to the condition of ease without originality: a grey, perpetual trance allergic to differences.

Apathy that produces swamps and early camps, where no one protests but neither is surprised.

 

In the Gospel, the person who suddenly sparks sparks was always a quiet assembly-goer, who wearily dragged his spiritual life in small, colourless circles, lacking in breadth and rhythm.

But the Word of the Lord has a real charge in it: the power of the bliss of living, of creating, of loving in truth - which does not hate eccentric characteristics.

Where such a call comes, all the demons you don't expect are unmasked and leap out of their lairs [previously simulated, agreed upon, artificially homologated].

Those who meet Christ are toppled from their abulic seat, sitting upright; they see their certainties thrown to the wind

Reversal that allows hidden or repressed facets to play their part - even if they are not 'as they should be'.

In short, the Gospel invites us to embrace all that is in us, as it is, unmitigated; multiplying our energies - for within lurks the best of our Call to personal Mission.

In Christ, our multifaceted (albeit contradictory) faces can take the field together, no longer repressing the precious territories of soul, essence, character, of another persuasion - even a distant or unrepeatably singular one.

The habitué of the assemblies is indeed disturbed and questioned, but at least he does not remain dumbfounded as before: he makes a conspicuous progress from the slumbering and ritual existence - bent, repetitive, dull and fake.

He is freed face to face from all the propaganda and clichés that previously kept him quiet, subjugated, on the leash of the 'authorities' and the conservative environment that repelled all enthusiasm.

The dirge of the sacred place and time was a litany that all in all could stand, but the critical proposal of Jesus restores consciousness and freedom from inculcated territories, instilling esteem, capacity for thought and will to do.

Now no longer on the sidelines, but in the midst of the people (v.35).

From the weariness of purely cultic habituation, and even through a protest that breaks apathy, the divine Person and his Call awaken us. They compel us to a saved life of new witness that seemed impossible.

Without much ado and to make us run free of the hypocrisies concealed within, the Lord also brings out all the rages, disagreements and alienations in us.

It is no longer enough to make up the numbers (lined up and covered), now we have to choose.

 

The difference between common religiosity and Faith? The wonder of a deep, personal, unexpected Happiness.

Indeed, away from habitual and mental burdens, we will extinguish wars with ourselves and go hand in hand even with our faults - discovering their hidden fruitfulness.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

Has the encounter with the living Jesus in the Church freed you from forms of alienation and restored you to yourself, or has it made you go back to asking for support, sacred confirmations and quiet - as if you were frequenting a relaxation zone?

Today’s Gospel — taken from chapter four of St Luke — is the continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel. Once again we find ourselves in the Synagogue of Nazareth, the village where Jesus grew up, where every knew him and his family. Then, after a period of absence, he returned there in a new way: during the Sabbath liturgy he read a prophecy on the Messiah by Isaiah and announced its fulfilment, making it clear that this word referred to him, that Isaiah had spoken about him. The event puzzled the Nazarenes: on the one hand they “all spoke well of him and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Lk 4:22).

St Mark reported what many were saying: “Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him?” (6:2). On the other hand, however, his fellow villagers knew him too well: “He is one like us”, they say, “His claim can only be a presumption (cf. The Infancy Narratives, English edition, p. 3). “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Lk 4:22), as if to say “what can a carpenter from Nazareth aspire to?”.

Well-acquainted with this imperviousness which confirms the proverb: “no prophet is acceptable in his own country”, to the people in the synagogue Jesus addressed words that resonate like a provocation. He cited two miracles wrought by the great prophets Elijah and Elisha for men who were not Israelites in order to demonstrate that faith is sometimes stronger outside Israel. At this point there was a unanimous reaction. All the people got to their feet and drove him away; and they even tried to push him off a precipice. However, passing through the midst of the angry mob with supreme calmness he went away. At this point it comes naturally to wonder: why ever did Jesus want to stir up this antagonism? At the outset the people admired him and he might perhaps have been able to obtain a certain consensus.... But this is exactly the point: Jesus did not come to seek the agreement of men and women but rather — as he was to say to Pilate in the end — “to bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37). The true prophet does not obey others as he does God, and puts himself at the service of the truth, ready to pay in person. It is true that Jesus was a prophet of love, but love has a truth of its own. Indeed, love and truth are two names of the same reality, two names of God.

In today’s liturgy these words of St Paul also ring out: “Love is not... boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right” (1 Cor 13:43-6). Believing in God means giving up our own prejudices and accepting the actual face in which he revealed himself: Jesus of Nazareth the man. And this process also leads to recognizing him and to serving him in others.

On this path Mary’s attitude is enlightening. Who could be more closely acquainted than her with the humanity of Jesus? Yet she was never shocked by him as were his fellow Nazarenes. She cherished this mystery in her heart and was always and ever better able to accept it on the journey of faith, even to the night of the Cross and the full brilliance of the Resurrection. May Mary also always help us to continue faithfully and joyfully on this journey.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 3 February 2013]

7. In his activity as a teacher, which began in Nazareth and extended to Galilee and Judea up to the capital, Jerusalem, Jesus knows how to grasp and make the most of the abundant fruits present in the religious tradition of Israel. He penetrates it with new intelligence, brings out its vital values, and highlights its prophetic perspectives. He does not hesitate to denounce men's deviations from the designs of the God of the covenant.

In this way he works, within the one and the same divine revelation, the passage from the "old" to the "new", without abolishing the Law, but instead bringing it to its full fulfilment (cf. Mt 5:17). This is the thought with which the Letter to the Hebrews opens: "God, who had already spoken in ancient times many times and in various ways to the fathers through the prophets, has lately, in these days, spoken to us through his Son . . ." (Heb 1:1).

8. This transition from the 'old' to the 'new' characterises the entire teaching of the 'Prophet' of Nazareth. A particularly clear example is the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus says: "You have heard that it was said to the ancients: Do not kill . . . But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be brought into judgment' (Matthew 5: 21-22). "You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery; but I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27-28). "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy; but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors . . ." (Mt 5:43-44).

Teaching in this way, Jesus at the same time declares: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish, but to fulfil" (cf. Mt 5:17).

9. This "fulfilment" is a key-word that refers not only to the teaching of the truth revealed by God, but also to the whole history of Israel, that is, of the people whose son Jesus is. This extraordinary history, guided from the beginning by the powerful hand of the God of the covenant, finds its fulfilment in Jesus. The plan that the God of the covenant had inscribed in this history from the beginning, making it the history of salvation, tended towards the "fullness of time" (Gal 4:4), which is realised in Jesus Christ. The Prophet of Nazareth does not hesitate to speak of this from his very first speech in the synagogue of his city.

10. Particularly eloquent are the words of Jesus reported in the Gospel of John when he says to his opponents: "Abraham, your father, rejoiced in the hope of seeing my day . . .", and in the face of their disbelief: "Are you not yet fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?", Jesus confirms even more explicitly: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am" (John 8: 56-58). It is evident that Jesus affirms, not only that he is the fulfilment of God's salvific designs, inscribed in Israel's history since the time of Abraham, but that his existence precedes Abraham's time, to the point of identifying himself as "he who is" (Ex 3:14). But for this very reason he, Jesus Christ, is the fulfilment of Israel's history, because he "surpasses" this history with his mystery.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 4 February 1987]

In today’s liturgy, the Gospel recounts Jesus’ first sermon in his home town, Nazareth. The outcome is bitter: instead of receiving approval, Jesus finds incomprehension and even hostility (cf. Lk 4:21-30). His fellow villagers wanted miracles and prodigious signs rather than a word of truth. The Lord does not perform them and they reject him, because they say they already knew him as a child: he is Joseph’s son (cf. v. 22), and so on. Jesus therefore utters a phrase that has become proverbial: “No prophet is acceptable in his own country” (v. 24).

These words reveal that Jesus’ failure was not entirely unexpected. He knew his people, he knew the heart of his people, he knew the risk he was running. He took rejection into account. And, so, we may ask ourselves: but if it was like this, if he foresaw a failure, why did he go to his home town all the same? Why do good to people who are not willing to accept you? It is a question that we too often ask ourselves. But it is a question that helps us understand God better. Faced with our closures, he does not withdraw: he does not put brakes on his love . Faced with our closures, he goes forward. We see a reflection of this in parents who are aware of the ingratitude of their children, but do not stop loving them and doing good to them, because of this. God is the same, but at a much higher level. And today he invites us too to believe in good, to leave no stone unturned in doing good.

However, in what happens in Nazareth we also find something else. The hostility towards Jesus from his people provokes us: they were not welcoming — what about us? To verify this, let us look at the models of acceptance that Jesus proposes today, to us and to his fellow countrymen. They are two foreigners: a widow from Sarepta of Sidon and Naaman, the Syrian. Both of them welcomed prophets: the former Elijah, the latter, Elisha. But it was not an easy reception, it went through trials. The widow welcomed Elijah, despite the famine and although the prophet was persecuted (cf. 1 Kings 17:7-16). He was persecuted for political and religious reasons. Naaman, on the other hand, despite being a person of the highest order, accepted the request of the prophet Elisha, who led him to humble himself, to bathe seven times in a river (cf. 2 Kings 5:1-14), as if he were an ignorant child. The widow and Naaman, in short, accepted through willingness and humility . The way to welcome God is always to be willing, to welcome him and to be humble. Faith passes through here: willingness and humility. The widow and Naaman did not reject the ways of God and his prophets; they were docile, not rigid and closed.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus also goes the way of the prophets: he presents himself as we would not expect. He is not found by those who seek miracles — if we look for miracles, we will not find Jesus — by those who seek new sensations, intimate experiences, strange things; those who seek a faith made up of power and external signs. No, they will not find him. Instead, he is found only by those who accept his ways and his challenges, without complaint, without suspicion, without criticism and long faces. In other words, Jesus asks you to welcome him in the daily reality in which you live; in the Church of today, as it is; in those who are close to you every day; in the reality of those in need, in the problems of your family, in your parents, in your children, in grandparents, welcoming God there. He is there, inviting us to purify ourselves in the river of willingness and in many healthy baths of humility. It takes humility to encounter God, to allow ourselves to be encountered by him.

And are we welcoming or do we resemble his fellow countrymen, who believed they knew everything about him? “I studied theology, I took that course in catechesis… I know everything about Jesus!” Yes, like a fool! Don’t be foolish, you don’t know Jesus. Perhaps, after many years as believers, we think we know the Lord well, very often with our ideas and our judgments. The risk is that we become accustomed, we get used to Jesus. And in this way, how do we grow accustomed? By closing ourselves off, closing ourselves off to his newness, in the moment he knocks on your door and tells you something new, and wants to enter into you. We must stop being fixed in our positions. The Lord asks for an open mind and a simple heart. And when a person has an open mind, a simple heart, he or she has the capacity to be surprised, to be amazed. The Lord always surprises us: this is the beauty of the encounter with Jesus. May Our Lady, model of humility and willingness, show us the way to welcome Jesus.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 30 January 2022]

Conversion and Times

(Lk 13:1-9)

 

Conversion refers to a process that shakes the soul, due to an Encounter. A ‘meeting’ that opens to the knowledge of ourselves.

A dialogue that projects minds and actions onto reality and the Mystery, which ceaselessly refer to a new Exodus.

Even today, the swampy counterpart of the life of Faith wedges itself like a constant woodworm, and is symbolized by an arid confrontation, expressed in the absence of fruit on an unnecessarily leafy tree.

The ‘vineyard’ is an icon of the chosen people and the ‘fig tree’ of its central prosperity. Here evokes the Temple, in particular its liturgical nucleus: the Sanctuary.

The cult that took place in the sacred of ​​the vast area of ​​Mount Zion had to express the praise of a people who were constantly listening, called to a life of sharing and fraternity.

The delicious fruits that the Lord was waiting for should have been sweet and tender (like figs), but they were hard and inedible. The Call had been dropped on deaf ears.

The many and showy "leaves" of the most devout rite didn’t celebrate a life of welcome and understanding, rather tended to hide the bitter berries of a style in no way conforming to the divine plan.

 

We ask ourselves: how much time do we have available to amend and not regress, living fully the present?

Is the Father's governmental action punitive or only responsible and life-giving?

 

In the parable of the sterile fig tree we learn: the only condition that can change a history of infertility and squalor - as well as the danger of formalism - is the time still needed to assimilate the Word.

Forward process, linked to the unpredictable way in which the vital call of the Seed and the particular reaching out of its roots intertwine with the earth of the soul, then overflowing in relation to the events.

Appeal that never ceases, in the reverb of which is elaborated and strengthened the change of mentality that introduces into conviviality and into the plan of liberation for an alternative world: the Kingdom of God.

After the three years of the Son's public life, there is a ‘fourth year’ that extends to the history of the Church (vv. 7-9).

It does not want to conceal the luxuriance of life but to make it blossom, and without ceasing recalls a flourishing growth; for a feeling of Family with sweetest fruit, which is not satisfied with external practices.

As the encyclical Brothers All points out, the Lord still dreams of a «plan that would set great goals for the development of our entire human family» (n.16).

For this purpose «we need to think of ourselves more and more as a single family dwelling in a common home. Such care does not interest those economic powers that demand quick profits» (n.17).

The hasty logic - as well as the epidermal rush of the society of events - creates inequalities, not only in the commercial field.

In short, everything becomes an opportunity for the Eternal’s flowering and action ground, history that is truly ours: teaching of authentic theology and humanization - if the people’s story unfolds ‘on the way’.

 

The God of religion has his own claims and does not appear long-suffering. The Father of Jesus knows how to wait. He does not get angry, he does not give in to the frenzy of blow for blow. He is not disinterested, but not complain; nor take revenge.

He proposes solutions.

In doing so He will not cause irreparable trouble - indeed will astound us. For a new Spring, in which the fig tree gives its unrepeatable sugary, juicy and highly energetic Fruit - before the many leaves.

So that ‘fraternity’ does not «remain just another vague ideal» (n.109).

 

 

 [3rd Sunday in Lent (year C), March 23, 2025]

Conversion and Times

Lk 13:1-9 (1-17)

 

Conversion refers to a process that shakes the soul, because of an Encounter. An encounter that opens up knowledge of ourselves.

A dialogue that projects mind and actions onto reality and Mystery, which incessantly refer back to a new Exodus.

Even today, the swampy counterpart to the life of Faith wedges in like a constant woodworm, and is symbolised by an arid confrontation, expressed in the absence of fruit on a fruitless tree.

The vineyard is an icon of the Chosen People and the fig tree of its central prosperity. Here it evokes the Temple, in particular its liturgical core: the Sanctuary.

According to religious prejudices - of class, purity, ministry, progressive skimming - within strictly demarcated perimeters, homage was paid to the God of Israel.

The worship that took place in the sacred zone of the vast area of Mount Zion was meant to express the praise of a people in constant listening, called to a life of sharing and fraternity.

The delicious fruits that the Lord expected should have been sweet and tender (like figs), instead they were hard and inedible. His call had been left to fall on deaf ears.

The many and conspicuous "leaves" of the devout ritual did not celebrate a life of acceptance and understanding, but rather tended precisely to hide the bitter berries of a style that did not conform to the divine plan at all.

 

We ask ourselves: how much time do we have to amend and not regress, living fully in the present? Is the Father's governing action punitive or only responsible and life-giving?

In the parable of the barren fig tree we learn: the only condition that can change a history of infertility and squalor - as well as the danger of formalism - is the time still needed to assimilate the Word.

Forward process, linked to the unpredictable manner in which the vital Call of the Seed and the particular outreach of its roots intertwines with the soil of the soul, then overflows in relation to events.

A call that does not cease; in whose reverberation is elaborated and strengthened the change of mentality that ushers in the reciprocal hospitable nature of conviviality and the design of liberation for an alternative world: the Kingdom of God.

Now in the hands of a useless and corrupt caste that had allowed the vital relationship to die out, the threads of the ignored design of Salvation and Justice (in the sense, first and foremost, of authentic God-man positions and just relationships) are re-knotted by the intensity of the Father-Son relationship.

 

After the three years of public life, there is a "fourth year" that extends to the history of the Church (vv.7-9).

It is not meant to conceal the blossoming of life, but to make it blossom, and it ceaselessly calls for a flourishing growth; for a feeling of Family with the sweetest fruit, which is not satisfied with external practices.

In order to overcome conditioning, suspicions, blockages, failures, there is a need to breathe: it is a matter of treading a long path of exploration.

There are no shortcuts, no useful U-turns according to the code of official authorities, perennially committed to attenuating and homologating charismatic peaks.

In fact, Jesus had invited the crowds to have independent thinking and judgement (Lk 12:57: "Now why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?").

Woe betide those who allow themselves to be subjugated, accepting omertà out of calculation or fear. What is at stake is our dignity and the missionary wealth to which God calls.

This is why the authorities considered Jesus as a Galilean: subversive and rebellious.

He is subjected to another intimidation by proxies of the religious leaders (Lk 13:1). We seem to be witnessing a rehearsal of prevarications with which we may be familiar.

 

As the encyclical Brothers All points out, the Lord still dreams of a project "with great goals, for the development of all mankind (No.16)".

For this purpose "we need to constitute ourselves into a 'we' that inhabits the Common House. Such care is of no interest to the economic powers that need quick revenues" (n.17).

The hasty logic - as well as the epidermic haste of the society of events - creates inequalities, not only in the mercantile field.

In short, everything becomes an opportunity for the Eternal to flourish and a field of action for the Eternal, a history that is truly ours: a magisterium of authentic theology and humanisation - if the story of the people unfolds on the way.

In the processes that trigger a history of redemption according to evangelical logic, the memory of the past does not alienate but interpellates: it does not banally provide inert, indefectible criteria for judging the present and obtaining repercussions or predictive capacity for the future.

The creed of philosophical-religious idealism may be a cocoon in which to lull oneself, but from the attentive and propulsive Faith springs a life of love that is also unpredictable, capable of inexplicable recoveries: it demands personal judgement and new determination in the situation.

It is harmful to dust off and readjust old things or one-sided dreams.

It is necessary to have open eyes and at the same time give time, so that we overcome the fatalisms of archaic monotheism, the sentiments that confuse intimist emotionalism with passion for the things of God, the reductionist and schematic fundamentalisms, the illusions of being already on the path of conversion.

The God of ancient religion has his demands and does not appear long-winded. The Father of Jesus knows how to wait. He tolerates both stubbornness and incautious acceleration.

He is not irritated, he does not give in to the frenzy of blow after blow. He is not disinterested, but he does not complain; nor does he take revenge.

It proposes solutions.

It reiterates occasions that would melt the hard temper of our idols - for an evolution towards a renewed masterpiece of celestial Patience.

It has the style of the mother or, at any rate, of the parent - close relative - who by dint of caresses and kisses convinces the wayward child to eat the food that will make him grow (calmly) and thus surpass himself.

In this way he does not cause irreparable trouble - on the contrary, he will astound us.

For a new Spring, in which the fig tree gives its unrepeatable sugary fruit [never already dry or dried] juicy and highly energetic - before the many leaves.

So that fraternity does not remain 'at best a romantic expression' (FT, 109).

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

How do you safeguard community life and your transpositions of Faith in Christ? What is the point of homologation in satisfaction, and where do you place your Preciousness?

 

 

Jesus and curved humanity

 

Theatrics and neutrality

(Lk 13:10-17)

 

The passion for full existence and things would like to lead us who knows where, but there is sometimes an external force that holds us back. A dark power that prevents us from even discovering our true nature.

The opinion of others, doctrines, customs or common ideas old and new stand in the way of the life that calls us.

And in the meantime, the perception that we are failing to walk the right path causes suffering, guilt and blockage.

Those who then accuse us... take advantage of the fear of having to pay the price of (character and vocational) freedom, for the eventual "errors" that one runs the risk of making by staying off the prescribed tracks.

All this - especially in religions without the leap of Faith - even should it seem that by walking the paths that belong to us, the risks could bring us joy, greater completeness, and fulfilment.

 

As always, Jesus makes Himself present in the "synagogue" not to make codified prayers: He is among His people to "instruct" (v.10).

In particular, he teaches that the Father is not in conflict with his subjects, rather he supports all his children, and gives a different posture from that of the 'animal world' (to which normal beliefs could perhaps reduce us).

At that time, no woman could participate directly in a liturgy, but in the Gospels the female figures are parable of the people themselves (in Hebrew, the term Israel is feminine).

Luke stages a woman to allude also to all the oppressed figures, to whom the praying community does not offer any comfort, nor does it grant any concrete emancipatory action.

People subjected to the 'cultural' paradigm of their particular environment and to the conditioning power of family tradition (which then transmitted a paradigmatic and conformist spirituality).

People subjected in everything to the head of the family, subservient to political power, subservient even to the fundamentalism of religious authorities. A humiliating, even atrocious panorama, bestial in fact.

In the place of worship, the Master (who in reality is forcefully educating his own) finds a humanity and a panorama of minima still harassed by religious obsession - therefore folded in on themselves, exhausted, unable to lift their heads.

The spirit of weakness that that very environment inoculated in the unwell made the faithful in the assembly (or the habituals in it) totally passive.

An existence - everyone's - hunched over, dragged along at the worst, without horizons.

Christ's action extracts from the habituated crowd, free from conformism and massification; it puts the faltering 'woman' back on her feet, who takes to praising God seriously, joyfully, immediately (vv.12-13).

She was a 'participant' in the ritual and always in the midst of the assembled people, but before personally meeting the Lord she did not glorify the Father in a real way - nor did she honour her own existence.

No joyful expressions of healing from the religious leaders - accustomed to inoculating a soporific atmosphere - only condemnation. Illustrious and distant.

Individualistic power-brokers, incapable of closeness. This was also due to various circle, doctrinal, supremacist and institutional interests.

Then - in the common idea - it seemed that in legalistic or rubric terms the sanctification of the day dedicated to the Lord excluded any involvement, and good works!

In addition to this unhealthy belief, even touching a wounded 'flesh' was imagined to make one impure!

In short, the spirit of the commandment imposing Sabbath rest (historically born to protect vast social, cultic, identity needs) had been completely manipulated and overturned.

The logic of the young Rabbi is opposed to protocol: only the neglect of the marginal and enslaved dishonours God.

The only non-negotiable principle is the good of the real woman and man: this is the only key to interpreting the Gospels.

And the rite must celebrate precisely the life of welcome and sharing, of happiness, personalisation, care, love.

The rest is for Jesus an unbearable comedy, from which his church leaders must keep away: 'Theatrics' (v.15) would call them even today - otherwise - our Lord.

We are worth far more than oxen and donkeys (vv.15-16). The relationship with God is celebration, healing, salvation: all concrete - the result of choice, even social.

And finally, even the new Magisterium breaks away from the previous, often diplomatic and neutral mentality:

"Jesus' conclusion is a request: Go and do likewise (Lk 10:37). That is to say, it challenges us to put aside all differences and, in the face of suffering, to be close to everyone. Therefore, I no longer say that I have 'neighbours' to help, but that I feel called to become a neighbour of others" (Fratelli Tutti, n.81).

Spirituality is not empty.

Exceptional 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 know how 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 in 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, that will make him tread impervious situations and territories.

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

How to explain the passion for the 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, concealed even behind our blood-spots.

Qualities that arise spontaneously and have their own path to conversion, but that sooner or later have to come out 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 really ours.

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

The women and men who experience this inner fire that is not extinguished are not introduced into a world that only wants to endure, everything already chiselled and that knows its destination.

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

Because 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 coming in.

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.We must surrender to them, not out of need, duty or calculation, nor just to understand something more, but to enjoy their spiritual Light and rays of Love, both near and far, creative of the inner and genius forces around us.

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 sap, both of the tree and of the roots themselves, to make us become well-rounded persons.

Thus we will no longer try to resemble our models, because the principle of such transmutation bursting out of the placid and conventional scenario has re-proposed the reason why we are in the world. [Our life-saving task... or the barrenness of models... Resetting and surprising our nostalgic and dead side... or the dark evil of living - and exhausting myself for a wisdom that has no more than Wisdom).

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

The passionate state is the force of practical thought and intellect. It makes our identity 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 brings the soul from external events back to the Core: from vicissitudes, things and wounds, to our innermost and richest being.

It knows that from the stimulus of such a source centre - and character bond of origin - will spring 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 will emanate... new commitments, brilliant insights and practical aptitudes, weaving the magic of the bride-matched soul.

It is this 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, and bitter abandonments. Like a power that calls us back to ourselves, to our unexpressed talents, to the energy of the gaze that grasps the meaning of a story, and 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 badly bears the interference of external judgements, which do not dwell deep inside but contribute to the atmosphere that circulates around it.

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 our unusual, autonomous seed. As it is: ascetic effort would yield poor results.

The Hidden Source expresses itself in events imbued with the future, soaked in an atmosphere of Presence, of 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 and 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.

On the contrary, the world of acquired knowledge is 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 counteract 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.

Hence, the unforeseen spark of the heart (which never matches) cannot be humiliated, threatened, shattered, removed or alienated: it is our consistent Inclination, which releases a clear radiance of Oneness.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

The passage of Luke's Gospel that is proclaimed on this Third Sunday of Lent relates Jesus' comments on two events of his time. The first: the uprising of some Galileans, which Pilate repressed with bloodshed. The second: the fall of the tower of Jerusalem, which claimed 18 victims. Two very distinct, tragic events: one caused by man, the other accidental. 

According to the mentality of the time, people were inclined to think that the disgrace which struck the victims was due to some grave fault of their own. Jesus instead says: "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans.... Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem?" (Lk 13: 2, 4). And in both cases he concludes: "I tell you, No: but unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (13: 3, 5). 

This, then, is the point to which Jesus wants to bring his listeners: the necessity for conversion. He does not propose it in legalistic terms, but rather in realistic ones, as the only adequate response to the events that place human certainties in crisis. 

In the face of certain disgraces, he warns, it does no good to blame the victims. Rather, true wisdom allows one to question the precariousness of existence and to acquire an attitude of responsibility: to do penance and to improve our lives. 

This is wisdom, this is the most effective response to evil on every level: interpersonal, social and international. 

Christ invites us to respond to evil, first of all, with a serious examination of conscience and the commitment to purify our lives. Otherwise, he says, we will perish, we will all perish in the same way. 

In effect, people and societies that live without ever questioning themselves have ruin as their only final destination. Conversion, on the other hand, while not preserving one from problems and misfortunes, allows one to face them in a different "way". 

First of all, it helps to prevent evil, disengaging some of its threats. And in any case, it allows one to overcome evil with good: if not always on a factual level, which sometimes is independent of our will, certainly on a spiritual level. 

In summary: conversion overcomes the root of evil, which is sin, even if it cannot always avoid its consequences. 

Let us pray to Mary Most Holy, who accompanies and sustains us on our Lenten journey, so that she may help every Christian to rediscover the greatness, I would say, the beauty, of conversion.

May she help us understand that doing penance and correcting one's conduct is not simply moralism, but the most effective way to change oneself and society for the better. 

An adage expresses it well: to light a candle is worth more than to curse the darkness.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 11 March 2007]