In favour of the oppressed

(Mt 9:32-38)

In the Gospels, recoveries from illness describe and manifest an experience of Faith.

The first community forms [here in Mt, of Galilee and Syria] did not grow out of miracles, but out of tireless activity to redeem and reintegrate people, even from an ideal point of view.

In a brutally competitive, ruthless and discouraging world, the life of fellowship in Christ allowed church members a recovery from any situation of personal despondency and social neglect.

At the origin of the Mission is both Jesus' Compassion and the disciple's Prayer (that he may overcome disappointments, freely establish himself on a good disposition, and seek nothing else).

Prayer does not convince the Father, but transforms the disciple. It stirs the conscience to perceive, realise, listen, welcome, and move - whatever the external conditions.

Prayer enables children to be reborn from the heart - in the small, in the shaky, in the child, in the adolescent, in the adult, in nature, in history, in themselves, and in God.

In a situation of social collapse and economic exploitation, even the official religion inculcated the idea that material blessings were a sign of spiritual rank, and vice versa.

People's consciences were also stifled by the feeling of exclusion (and punishment for guilt) that accentuated their disenchantment.

Relying on the sense of unworthiness of the voiceless, the masters of the spirit did not miss an opportunity to placate consciences, harass the weak, and profit from their vicissitudes, monetising them.

The incredible novelty of the first fraternal realities of Faith broke away from the 'race' of ancient religion: the ability to concretely re-establish discouraged people and re-weave both quality of life and relationships emerged.

The official leaders, irresponsible and totally disinterested in the real life of the people, maliciously defended their positions and tried to exorcise the people's admiration for the friends of Jesus - with the usual lies about evil.

Here came the Prayer of the Intimates, which was addressed to the Father to help all the children in their radiant, supportive work; for the birth of a new, urgent life-consciousness, and bonds - out of kindness to those in need.

In short, God's pedagogy is transmitted in willing listening, in contemplative prayer, yet it is not abstract.

The idea and work of Faith is detached from the world of sophisticated, or empty, homologising spirituality.

It is that of the leaven that ferments the masses: it saves men by means of men - starting with the gaze of the soul (lucid, overcoming the breathlessness).

To internalise and live the message:

In the face of human and social emergencies, what do you wait for and how do you refresh yourself from weariness and opposition? Does breathlessness or lucidity win?

"The Good Shepherd "seeing the crowds, felt compassion for them, because they were weary and exhausted like sheep that have no shepherd," and said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Pray, therefore, to the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest!" (Mt 9:36-38).

The art of promoting and caring for vocations finds a shining point of reference in the pages of the Gospel where Jesus calls his disciples to follow him and educates them with love and care. The particular object of our attention is the way Jesus called his closest co-workers to proclaim the Kingdom of God (cf. Lk 10:9). First of all, it is clear that the first act was prayer for them: before calling them, Jesus spent the night alone, in prayer and listening to the Father's will (cf. Lk 6:12), in an inner ascent above everyday things. The vocation of the disciples is born precisely in Jesus' intimate conversation with the Father. Vocations to the priestly ministry and to the consecrated life are primarily the fruit of a constant contact with the living God and of an insistent prayer that is raised to the 'Lord of the harvest' whether in parish communities, in Christian families, or in vocational cenacles".

(Pope Benedict, from the Message for the 48th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 15 May 2011)

Prayer-presentment, unitive. Not to lose the magic of the Mystery

Gratitude: the Kingdom at hand and Prayer Incarnate

(Mt 9,35-10,1.6-8)

Jesus differs from the Rabbis of his time because he does not wait for the exhausted and prostrate people (v.36) to come to him: he seeks them out.

And the group of his own must participate, both in works of healing and deliverance - fraternity motivated by luminous selflessness.

He enters prayer assemblies with pastoral anxiety: to teach, not to disquisition. He does not lecture in logical analysis, but lets the One who dwell in him emerge.He proclaims a Kingdom that is totally different from how it was inculcated by the manipulators of consciences (overflowing with detailed convictions) - who certainly did not exercise gratuitousness.

The ancient doctrines and its protagonists dampened any dissonance and produced the worst: intimate coercion, anonymity, loneliness, passivity.

They inculcated that it was decisive to acquire their flat security, certainly not to open up to the personal Mystery, to the innate character - fruitfully not conforming to the context.

In fact, they sought to disturb the journeys of the soul, which sometimes wanders to find itself, and which prefers new glimpses to the usual way of seeing - swampy, stagnant.

They did not admit that in each believer could dwell a fundamental option that did not conform to their ideology and way of seeing.

Everything about other people's lives had to work perfectly according to their goals. So they did not preach upheaval, but static.

Nothing new was to happen that would challenge the social balance, their authoritarian influence... and their income.

Nothing different was to be explored and found.

Yet, yesterday as today, within each woman and man resides a volcano of potential energies - which according to the dominant ideology only had to be stifled and aligned.

For all that still drags on, we conversely seek a God to be experienced, who is lovable, not 'artfully' constructed... nor invisible or far removed from our condition.

We want the One who gives breath, and understands us.

This is clearly understood: what we hatch is not a miserable illusion, to be extinguished in favour of external balances.

In fact, the Gospel (v.35) proclaims Grace: the face of the Father - who wants nothing for himself, but gives everything to transmit his own Life to us. And he does this not to deaden our inner energy.

The Glad Tidings proclaim a Friend who comes, who does not force us to "ascend" [in the abstract] nor imprison us within guilt, exhausting the already subdued creatures - making them even more desolate than before.

Here is revealed a Heaven that makes one feel adequate, does not chastise or even impress, but promotes and puts everyone at ease; a Merciful One who is not only good: exclusively good.

The prodigal Father welcomes people as the Son does in the Gospels - just as they are; not inquiring. Rather by expanding.

His Word-event also does not only reactivate: it reintegrates imbalances and enhances them in the perspective of real-person paths - without judging or dispersing, or breaking anything.

For such a work of wise recomposition of being, the Master invites to Prayer (v.38) - the disciples' first form of commitment.

Access to different attunements in the Spirit teaches us to stimulate the soul's gaze, to value and understand everything and everyone.

So - after making them less ignorant - Jesus invites his disciples to involve themselves in missionary work; not to act like scholars or moral lecturers.

That would be careless posturing, which makes the hopeless feel even more lost.

The Mission grows from a small but boundless dimension - that of intimate perception, which becomes aware of the needs and mystery of a favourable Presence.

New configurations of understanding, in spirit: fully discovered only in deep prayer (v.38). Incarnate prayer.

It is not meant to distract us from inner realisation; on the contrary, it acts as a guide, and returns the soul, dispersed in the many common practices to be performed, to its own centre.

It makes us experience the yearning and understanding of the perfect condition: the Father does not intend to absorb our aptitudes, but to strengthen them. For everyone has an intimate project, a Calling by Name, their own place in the world.

It seems paradoxical, but the outgoing Church - the one that does not speculate, nor engage in mass proselytising to impress the mainstream - is first and foremost a matter of formation and internal awareness.

In short, one recognises oneself and becomes not unaware of things through prayer-presentment, unitive.

In Christ, it is not performance or devout expression, but rather understanding and first and foremost listening to the God who reveals and calls in a thousand subtle forms.

The commitment to heal the world is not won without an awareness of vocation, nor by allowing oneself to be plagiarised and going haphazardly.

Rather, by sharpening our gaze, and reinvesting virtue and character even in our own sides that are still in shadow.

Nor does it remain essential to always cross every boundary (Mt 10:5-6) with a logic of flight.

For not infrequently - unfortunately - only those who love strength start from the too far removed from themselves [from the far off and out of reach].

The 'sheep' lost and weary of trying and trying again - the excluded, the considered lost, the marginalised - are not lacking. They are close at hand, and there is no urgency to extricate oneself immediately. Almost as if to exempt oneself from those closest.

The horizon expands itself, if one is convinced and does not like masks or subterfuges.The sense of proximity to oneself, to others and to reality is an authentic bearer of the Kingdom that is revealed: the Near.

Understanding the nature of creatures and conforming to it in a growing way, all are inspired to change and complete themselves, enriching even cultural sclerosis, without alienating forcings.

Exercising a practice of goodness even with oneself.

Some of the most quoted aphorisms from the Tao culture read: "The way of doing is being"; "he who knows others is wise, he who knows himself is enlightened"; "a long journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"; "the master observes the world, but trusts his inner vision"; "if you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place"; "when you accept yourself, the whole world accepts you".

So in the battle against infirmity (Mt 9:35-10:1): we recover and overcome by sharpening our gaze and reinvesting the energy and character even of our own still-dulled sides.

All the gratuitousness (Mt 10:8) that may flow from this to build up life for the sake of our brothers and sisters, will burst forth not as puerile [hysterical] reciprocation or engagement.

It will be spontaneous, solid and cheering Love Dialogue, because it will be free of those imbalances that smoulder under the ashes of facade conditioning.

The sense of proximity (v.7) to oneself, to others, and to reality will be an authentic - not programmatic, nor alienated - port of the Reign that is revealed: Beside.

To internalise and live the message:

Does Prayer in Christ shake your conscience?

What consolation do you expect from the God Who Comes?

Perhaps a reward?

Or a gratuitousness that triggers - here and now - true Love-understanding, attentive to the calls of every subtle Voice?

The torch of mission: Proximity

Our God is the God of proximity, he is a God who is close, walking with his people. That image in the desert, in Exodus: the cloud and the pillar of fire to protect the people: he walks with his people. He is not a God who leaves the prescriptions written down and says, 'Go ahead'. He makes the prescriptions, he writes them with his own hand on stone, he gives them to Moses, he gives them to Moses, but he does not leave the prescriptions and go: he walks, he is near. "What nation has a God so near?" It is closeness. Ours is a God of closeness.

And man's first response, in the first pages of the Bible, are two attitudes of non-neighbourliness. Our response is always to turn away, we turn away from God. He comes near and we turn away. Those two first pages. Adam's first attitude with his wife is to hide: they hide from God's closeness, they are ashamed, because they have sinned, and sin leads us to hide, to not want closeness (cf. Gen 3:8-10). And many times, [it leads] to a theology designed only on a judge God; and for this I hide, I am afraid. The second attitude, human, before the proposal of this closeness of God is to kill. To kill one's brother. "I am not my brother's keeper" (cf. Gen 4:9).

Two attitudes that wipe out all closeness. Man refuses God's closeness, he wants to be master of relationships, and closeness always brings with it some weakness. The 'near God' becomes weak, and the closer he gets, the weaker he seems. When he comes to us, to dwell with us, he makes himself man, one of us: he makes himself weak and brings weakness to the point of death and the cruellest death, the death of murderers, the death of the greatest sinners. Proximity humbles God. He humbles himself to be with us, to walk with us, to help us.

The 'near God' speaks to us of humility. He is not a 'great God', no. He is near. He is at home. And we see this in Jesus, God made man, close even unto death. With his disciples: he accompanies them, he teaches them, he corrects them with love... Let us think, for example, of Jesus' closeness to the distressed disciples of Emmaus: they were distressed, they were defeated, and he slowly approached them, to make them understand the message of life, of resurrection (cf. Lk 24:13-32).

Our God is near and asks us to be close, to each other, not to turn away from each other. And in this moment of crisis due to the pandemic we are experiencing, this closeness asks us to manifest it more, to show it more. We cannot, perhaps, get physically close because of the fear of contagion, but we can awaken in us an attitude of closeness among ourselves: with prayer, with help, so many ways of closeness. And why should we be close to one another? Because our God is close, he wanted to accompany us in life. He is the God of proximity. That is why we are not isolated people: we are close, because the inheritance we have received from the Lord is proximity, that is, the gesture of closeness.

Let us ask the Lord for the grace to be close, one to another; not to hide from one another; not to wash our hands, as Cain did, of another's problem, no. Neighbours. Proximity. Proximity. "For what great nation has the gods so close to it, as the Lord, our God, is close to us whenever we call upon Him?"

(Pope Francis, St. Martha homily 18 March 2020)