(Mt 23:13-22)

«Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees theatrists, for you close the kingdom of heaven before people» (Mt 23:13).

Without much ado, Jesus unmasks the untouchable veterans and religious leaders, all agreeing [for the first time in their lives] and ganging up on self-interest.

Hypocrite is one who puts a veil over reality, so that it appears different: the ugly must appear beautiful, the bad (or hardship) good.

Radicality of belief' is not attachment to the subtleties of reasoning and disciplines, but Faith as a life current - 'duty' yes, but of love.

The very harsh and topical tone makes it clear that the Lord is deeply grieved [vv.13-16.23: "Alas for you..."; "Alas for you..."].

The young Rabbi is not confronting the well-disguised duplicity of the scribes and Pharisees of two millennia ago.

He is speaking as a master because he is addressing the top of the class in his communities. Vanities who make a spectacle of themselves, using the Lord as a screen, hijacking him; taking him hostage.

It is precisely the experts who close the Kingdom - that is, the sphere in which the Father 'reigns'.

They present a God who is legislator and judge, ultimately equal to that of the religions or the First Testament.

In this way, it is precisely the leaders who falsify the image of the Church.

In so doing, it is precisely the supposedly elect, the upright and returning experts in the Christian assemblies, who mortify the loving Face of the Eternal.

They make him an unbearable caricature, which alienates hearts.

In short, already in the first assemblies, those in charge who did not know how to stand aside manipulated Son and Father.

They reintroduced ancient pieties, forms of respect [and duty] towards them; as well as the idea of a moralising God, who embarrassed with torment those who appeared at the threshold of the assemblies.

Idiocies of the haughty who believed they had no need of compassion... exercised over the signs (so believed) of another's sin.

All this closed the souls of the unfortunate. In short, it had nothing to do with the Father's plan of salvation.

"Truth" is what one gives, not what one believes one possesses.

In his fraternities, Jesus demands enlightened guides, not clamouring; not "reciters" who cling to [outdated or à la page] roles.

Instead, disciplines of the arcane, roadmaps, pretensions, false forms of subservience and manipulation begin to appear again.

Artifices useful only to pimps who knew how to turn people's spontaneous devotion into a market, a forum, and a catwalk - where everything is bought and sold at a price (even a realisation price).

A life-stopping situation, because the zeal of official figures is not always good - especially if it is mannerly.

In the distant and insignificant - conversely - Jesus encountered people who were perhaps more ethically negative and compromised than conformist leaders, but without masks.

Women and men with a genuine face, not 'theatrics' with something phoney to save [vv.13-15 Greek text].

The last and inexperienced were not duplicitous, nor corrupt within. They did not lose their sense of closeness.

Always the 'little ones', the 'infants' know the Father who walks with his people. And they do not become disloyal: they can therefore receive the joy of a newfound life.

To internalise and live the message:

Does your community care for your rare exceptionality? What divine face does it convey? Does it help you find yourself or does it bind you to its patterns from the start?

Dives in Misericordia: theocentrism and anthropocentrism 

"God, rich in mercy" (Eph 2:4) is the one whom Jesus Christ revealed to us as Father: his Son, in himself, manifested him to us and made him known to us.

The more the mission carried out by the Church is human-centred, the more it is, so to speak, anthropocentric, the more it must be confirmed and realised theocentrically, that is, oriented in Jesus Christ towards the Father. While the various currents of human thought in the past and present have been and continue to be inclined to divide and even oppose theocentrism and anthropocentrism, the Church on the other hand, following Christ, seeks to unite them in human history in an organic and profound manner. And this is also one of the fundamental principles, and perhaps the most important, of the Magisterium of the last Council.

[Pope John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia n.1].

They have lost the key to intelligence

Here, said the Pope, they "arrive at a pile of prescriptions and for them this is salvation: they have lost the key to intelligence which, in this case, is the gratuitousness of salvation". In reality, "the law is a response to God's gratuitous love: it is He who has taken the initiative to save us, and because you have loved me so much, I try to go your way, the way you have shown me", in a word "I fulfil the law". But 'it is a response' because 'the law, always, is a response and when one forgets the gratuitousness of salvation one falls, one loses the key to the intelligence of salvation history'.

And, again, the Pontiff relaunched, those people "have lost the key to intelligence because they have lost the sense of God's closeness: for them God is the one who made the law" but "this is not the God of revelation". In reality "the God of revelation is God who began to walk with us from Abraham to Jesus Christ: God who walks with his people". Therefore "when we lose this close relationship with the Lord, we fall into this obtuse mentality that believes in the self-sufficiency of salvation through the fulfilment of the law".

Precisely "today's Gospel passage points out two of them", was the reply. "First of all the closure: 'You did not enter, and those who wanted to enter, you prevented'". Yes, 'these people closed the door to the faithful and the faithful did not understand: they, all their moral theology, made intellectual mannerism, but it did not reach the people and, with that, they drove people away. No, this is not the religion I wanted: this is not the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ'. And, the Pontiff pointed out, "I am thinking here of the responsibility we pastors have: when we pastors lose or take away the key to intelligence, we close the door to ourselves and to others".

[Pope Francis, St. Martha, in L'Osservatore Romano 20/10/2017].

Memory of Gratuity

May the Lord give us memory of the "gratuitousness" of salvation and of God's closeness and of the concreteness of the works of mercy he wants from us, whether they are "material or spiritual": in this way we will become people who help to "open the door" to ourselves and to others. This was the Pope's prayer during the morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta. Taking his cue from today's Gospel passage from Luke, in which the scribes and Pharisees considered themselves righteous and Jesus makes them touch with their hands that God alone is righteous, Francis explains why the doctors of the law had "taken away knowledge", with the "consequence" of "not entering the Kingdom and not even letting others enter".

"This taking away of the ability to understand God's revelation, to understand God's heart, to understand God's salvation - the key to knowledge -, we can say that it is a grave forgetfulness. One forgets the gratuitousness of salvation; one forgets God's nearness and one forgets God's mercy. And those who forget the gratuitousness of salvation, the nearness of God and the mercy of God, have taken away the key to knowledge'.

They have therefore 'forgotten' gratuitousness. It is "God's initiative to save us and instead they take the side of the law": salvation - says the Pope - "is there, for them", thus arriving at "a pile of prescriptions" that in fact become salvation. Thus, however, "they do not receive the power of God's justice". Instead, the law is always "a response to the gratuitous love of God", who has taken the "initiative" to save us. And, Francis adds, "when one forgets the gratuitousness of salvation one falls, one loses the key to the intelligence of the history of salvation", losing "the sense of God's closeness".

"For them God is the one who made the law. And this is not the God of revelation. The God of revelation is God who began to walk with us from Abraham to Jesus Christ, God who walks with his people. And when we lose this close relationship with the Lord, we fall into this obtuse mentality that believes in the self-sufficiency of salvation with the fulfilment of the law. God's closeness'.

In fact, when God's closeness is missing, when prayer is missing, highlights the Pope, "one cannot teach doctrine" or even "do theology", much less "moral theology": Francis reiterates that theology "is done on one's knees, always close to God". And the closeness of the Lord reaches "to the highest point of Jesus Christ crucified", since we have been "justified" by the blood of Christ, as Saint Paul says. This is why, the Pontiff explains, the works of mercy "are the touchstone of the fulfilment of the law", because one goes to touch the flesh of Christ, "to touch Christ who suffers in a person, both corporally and spiritually". And he also warns that when one loses the key to knowledge, one also comes "to corruption". Finally, the Pope thinks of the "responsibility" of pastors in the Church today: when they lose or take away "the key to knowledge", they close "the door to us and to others".

"In my country I have heard many times of pastors who did not baptise the children of single mothers, because they were not born in canonical marriage. They were closing the door, scandalising God's people, why? Because the hearts of these pastors had lost the key to knowledge. Without going so far back in time and space, three months ago, in a town, a mother wanted to baptise her newborn son, but she was civilly married to a divorced man. The parish priest said: 'Yes, yes. I will baptise the child. But your husband is divorced. Stay outside, he cannot be present at the ceremony". This happens today. The Pharisees, the doctors of the law are not things of those times, even today there are many. That is why it is necessary to pray for us pastors. Pray, so that we do not lose the key to knowledge and do not close the door to us and to the people who want to enter".

[Giada Aquilino, in:

https://www.vaticannews.va/it/papa-francesco/messa-santa-marta/2017-10/papa-a-santa-marta--gratuita-della-salvezza-di-dio-apre-porta-ag.html]