The faithless lower self, the thespian

Mt 6:1-6.16-18 (.19-23)

 

"Beware of practising your righteousness before men in order to be admired by them" (Mt 6:1). Jesus, in today's Gospel, reinterprets the three fundamental works of piety in the Mosaic Law. Almsgiving, prayer and fasting characterise the law-abiding Jew. In the course of time, these prescriptions had been marred by the rust of outward formalism, or had even mutated into a sign of superiority. Jesus highlights a common temptation in these three works of piety. When one does something good, almost instinctively the desire arises to be esteemed and admired for the good deed, that is, to have satisfaction. And this, on the one hand, encloses one in oneself, on the other hand, takes one out of oneself, because one lives projected towards what others think of us and admire in us. In re-proposing these prescriptions, the Lord Jesus does not ask for a formal respect to a law that is foreign to man, imposed by a strict legislator as a heavy burden, but invites us to rediscover these three works of piety by living them in a deeper way, not out of self-love, but out of love for God, as means on the path of conversion to Him. Almsgiving, prayer and fasting: this is the path of the divine pedagogy that accompanies us, not only in Lent, towards the encounter with the Risen Lord; a path to be travelled without ostentation, in the certainty that the heavenly Father knows how to read and see even in the secret of our hearts".

[Pope Benedict, homily 9 March 2011].

 

"But when you pray, enter into your room and shut your door [Is 26:20; 2 Kings 4:33] pray to your Father who is in secret" (Mt 6:6).

 

The Tao says: "He who attempts to shine, obscures his own Light" and "If you concern yourself with people's opinions, you will be their prisoner".

The disciples are called to a higher righteousness of intention (perfection) than the scribes and Pharisees - who performed according to appearance, public opinion, and retribution.

Jesus does not question religious practices per se, but their purpose and manner.

Aim: [among the still Judaizing veterans, from his communities in Galilee and Syria] to expose the insistents of outward fulfilment.

For shrewdness and the recitation of holiness succeed in fooling the imaginations of many... at least for a time.

But the wiles we are adept at concocting to beg for recognition do not possess the pace of Wisdom.

Fasting, penance and prayer are fundamental works, yet utterly worthless and meaningless if they are not made alive by charity and accompanied by justice.

Life in the Spirit is detached from the practice of 'spiritual' things - to show off... to deceive even oneself.

Finally, the (all incidental) artifice of holy duplicity becomes vague; sooner or later a boomerang.

 

At that time, the commitment to the Alms was held in high regard, but it had become general practice to announce the most important initiatives - in the synagogue and even in the streets.

For Jesus, publicity affects what belongs to us deeply [let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing] and is honourable.

Even 'devoutly' tightrope walkers, or career politicians who begin to lack the cue, like to make themselves out to be benefactors of humanity. But their real goal is to go on stage - not the spreading of a spirit of selflessness.

They intend to be recognised and acclaimed again - for this they use an absolutely showy, exhibitionist and gaudy manner.

Having reached their true goal of opportunism and individualism, despite their altruistic façade they would drop everything there.

Any convinced fulfilment would have to flourish spontaneously and hidden, instead of in overload - but just imagine what fun it would be, not to let it be known [...].

In reality, renouncing façade propaganda to promote contrary dimensions would extinguish intimate lacerations and conflicts; hidden energies would be released. A more fruitful awareness would be broadened.

 

The same orientation applies to Prayer, much better if inapparent. The inner life is not unnatural recitation.

Children's prayer is not reduced to a repetition of dirges, nor is it a request for favours; neither is it an exhibitionist and affected catwalk, to be considered pious, 'proper' and 'proper' people.

In the Temple, sacrifices were accompanied by public formulas. To this effect, even the synagogues were considered an extension of the Temple. And at the appointed times, prayers were also said in the streets.

Those who were able to recite long litanies from memory could thus flaunt their virtue and be admired.

But Dialogue with God is not performance, it is essential Listening: the root of renewal; distinguishing criteria and action. 

Understanding and empathy, intimate perception and profound intelligence of things restore us to the meaning of personal life - the discriminator of our growth and love for our brothers and sisters.

Why do we thirst for this knowledge, which is only grasped in its exclusive purity in a space of solitude?

Because the soul - overwhelmed with fracas - would not otherwise grasp the guidance of the innate Friend, nor its own essential quality.

 

There are inescapable questions, beyond the reach of our lower self, i.e. our cerebral or practical activities.

What is our Way? How do we accommodate that which has specific weight and character?

It is not worth solving problems hastily, at all costs, in a conformist or exaggerated manner.

Of course, we do not always get along with God who also wants us to flourish. What is the antidote?

Open prayer establishes people in this intimate, secret, hidden atmosphere that radically belongs to us,

In the Spirit it intertwines with the deepest, ancestral fibres - and gradually brings out the hidden path and destiny.

 

Personal prayer is creative.

It not only erases our idea of life, of sorrows, of goals, of relationships, of defeats, of judgements...

(Bitterness does not seem to make life fly by - but it does invite the eye to shift).

And Attention Listening gives us a new Reading; it brings us out of the confines. It puts us in touch with other energies and virtues.

 

A higher level of humanity comes to us only in the amazement of such different advice, of unexpected intuition; of a reality that disorients.

Principle of Liberation that allows us to encounter our own deepest sides, and reminds us of them, leading us into the kindred territory - that we do not yet know.

We must understand deeper than the action-reaction mechanisms allow, filled with distracted tension - absent from our own Calling by Name, which would give us enthusiasm.

Not infrequently, the soul itself - which detests certain outcomes that the society [also ecclesiastical] outside would like to let us live with - revolts, attacks and leads to the failure of all too normal goals.

Even the discomforts come from the simple fact that we are not on the Path of deep attunements: 'point' that bends its contractions towards us, for having chosen the broad but artificial path of compromises.

There are fundamental inclinations for everyone: it would be constructive to yield to them - and to allow ourselves to be guided.

Our complete existence is not a path mapped out by 'where we should go'.

It is appropriate not to be stubborn, and to learn to accommodate the activity of metamorphosis that wants to live; to express itself in us - to guide us and sometimes deviate from 'how we should be'.

The woman and man who gather in prayer are torn from the homologation of interpretative codes, and from the disease of the society of appearance - all sitting in the opinions and time of the minimal.

 

The same viewpoint for the theme of Fasting: a practice considered a manifestation of conversion to God.

But with surprise we note that Jesus' call applies especially to the religious with a forced pensive and undone air.

Not a few devotees of all creeds use to posture extravagantly - a tawdry expression of their emotional problems.

Indeed, here and there, even in youthful circles, there seems to be some regurgitation of contrived asceticism.

But in this way, believers only tread the path of mannered renunciations [those that God does not ask for], artificial ones. And for the exact opposite, making the life-wave hysterical.

Instead, we are called to be in company: with ourselves and with our brothers. Even renunciation is for the sake of harmonious coexistence, without forcing one's personality lines apart.

Here too, the discernment of spirits becomes a propitious occasion to create space for the humanising vocation.

Already the prophet Isaiah had distinguished between authentic and false fasting [Is 58], that is, not aimed at a life of justice and communion, hence at feasting and joy.

It is useless to undergo practices that do not change the heart.

Along the unspontaneous or trick-or-treat road (of plagiarism suffered or imposed of one's own mind on the soul) the lamb's bleating will sooner or later become a roaring or braying. A matter of time.

In the discernment of the spirits, it is the attitude that reveals the fiction of those who really only think only of power (in greed) and great things, precisely those of megalomaniac superiors, or the elect.

All this using poor Jesus and the little ones, or any creed whatsoever, as screens - just the opposite.

 

Almsgiving, fasting and prayer are attitudes, not knowable practices outside the unrepeatable language of God himself and his exceptional way of communicating with each person. 

Dialogue of an eccentric, precious, ineffable, fantastic, unsurpassed uniqueness, which does not allow itself to be attracted by window-dressing externality, nor by herd-like levelling, or crassness.

Putting the time of ambiguous hubbub in the background.

 

"Precisely because it is great, my Way seems to be like nothing [...] I do not dare to be first in the world, so I can be chief of the perfect instruments" [Tao Tê Ching, Lxvii].

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

Is your spiritual life a time of hubbub ... or a time and fertile ground, a propitious occasion to internalise, to encounter oneself, one's essence, and God in one's brothers and sisters?

 

 

Conclusion:

Where is the ecclesial heart?

(Mt 6:19-23)

 

"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be" (v.21). It is not an abused personal or institutional issue, insipid; from easy ironies.

To ignore it is to give it further breathing space, making it grow out of all proportion; making it even more out of time and difficult to read (and identify its treatment).

All this, however, must be done by putting precipitation in brackets... in the spirit of broader understanding. It is understood that in order to understand each other and activate different resources, each community must go through moments of the most severe verification.

Even for denominational churches with a wide and prestigious tradition, the awareness of being losers in this respect today is indispensable for finding oneself. Overcoming the stumbling block... forwards, 'outwards'.

 

 

We read in the Encyclical "Spe Salvi" No. 2 ("Faith is Hope"):

 

"Hope is a central word in biblical faith - to the point that in several passages the words 'faith' and 'hope' seem interchangeable [...].

How decisive it was for the awareness of the early Christians that they had received a reliable hope as a gift, is also shown where Christian existence is compared with life before faith or with the situation of the followers of other religions [...].

Their gods had proved questionable and no hope emanated from their contradictory myths. Despite the gods, they were 'godless' and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future. 'In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus' (In nothing from nothing how soon we fall back) says an epitaph from that era [...].

It appears as a distinctive element of Christians that they have a future: it is not that they know in detail what awaits them, but they know on the whole that their life does not end in a vacuum.

Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does the present also become liveable. So we can now say: Christianity was not just 'good news' - a communication of hitherto unknown content.

In our language we would say: the Christian message was not just 'informative', but 'performative'. This means: the gospel is not just a communication of things that can be known, but a communication that produces facts and changes lives.

The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown wide open. He who has hope lives differently; he has been given a new life'.

 

In the form of the Relationship, everything opens up intense life - which integrates and overcomes self-love, the thirst for domination.

This liberates from the 'old', that is, it closes a cycle of paths already set - to make us return as newborns.

The Hope that has weight dismantles the inessential; it expels the noise of thoughts that are no longer in tune with our growth, and introduces dreamy energies, a wealth of possibilities.

There will be initial resistance, but development sets in.

Hope sacrifices ballasts and activates us according to the 'divine within'. It opens the door to a new, brighter and corresponding phase.

 

The treasures of the earth quickly blind; likewise they pass away: suddenly. The age of global crisis throws it in our faces.

Yet, it is a necessary pain.

We understand: the new paths are not traced by goods, nor by devout memories, but by the Void, which acts as a gap to common, taken for granted, reassuring easiness.

Religiosity good for all seasons gives way to the unprecedented life of Faith.

This is where the Art of discernment and pastoral work comes in: it should know how to introduce new competitive, dissimilar energies - cosmic and personal - that prepare unprecedented, open, gratuitous syntheses.

We know this, and yet in some circles (prestigious and already wealthy) the greed to possess under the guise of necessity does not allow them to see clearly.

It happens even to long-standing consecrated persons - it is not clear why such greedy, perfunctory duplicity.

 

Do we still want to emerge, raising more confusions? After all, we are dissatisfied with our mediocre choices.

At the beginning of the Vocation, we felt the need for a Relationship that would bring Meaning and a Centre to our feriality...

Then we deviated, perhaps out of dissatisfaction or for reasons of calculation and convenience - and the dullness of our robbing eyes prevailed. First here and there, gradually occupying the soul. 

Even in some leaders and prominent church circles, the basis of existence has become the many-zero bank account.

So... the vanity scene, the bag of commerce, the thrill of getting on the board, in various realities have supplanted real hearts - and eyes themselves.

As if to say: there is another experience of the 'divine', which is a doomsday: between one Psalm and another, better than Love becomes feeling powerful, secure and respected around.

(Do God and accumulation give different orders? No problem: let it be understood that one does it for 'his' Glory).

So much for the common good.

Not a few people are realising that counting is the most popular sport in various multi-pious companies, fantastically embellished with events and initiatives (to cover what it's worth).

And litmus test is precisely that mean-spirited scrutiny (vv.22-23) that behind dense scenes, holds back, even judges, and keeps a distance from others. With the gaze that closes the horizon of existence: the immediately at hand, and of circumstance, counts.

A seemingly superabundant belief - coincidentally without the prominence of Hope - is condemning us to the world's worst denatality rate.

The panorama of our devoutly empty villages and towns is discouraging. But one revels in one's own niche, and in the petty situation.

The important thing is that everything is epidermically adorned.

Under the peculiar bell tower that sets the pace for the usual things, many people keep 'their' (too much) to themselves, content to sacralise selfishness with the display of beautiful statues, customs, banners, colourful costumes and mannerisms.

Instead, according to the Gospels, in the attempts and paths of Faith that are not satisfied with an empty spirituality, life becomes bright with creative Love that flourishes, and puts everyone at ease.

Even the old can re-emerge in this new spirit. For there are other Heights. For what makes one intimate with God is nothing external.

The authentic Church aroused by clear 'visions' - without papier-mâché and duplicity - always reveals something portentous: fruitfulness from nullity, life from the outpouring of it, birth from apparent sterility.

A river of unimagined attunements will reconnect the reading of events and the action of believers to the work of the Spirit, without barriers.

For when normalised thinking gives way and settles down, the new advances.

The choice is now inexorable: between death and life; between longing and "darkness" (v.23), or Happiness.

The first step is to admit that one has to make a path.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

Where is your Treasure? Is your heart and eye simple?

Have you ever experienced sides that others judge to be inconclusive (from a material point of view) and instead have prepared your new paths?