The Lord wants new people, who listen

(Mk 3:31-35)

In the life of one who is challenged by the relationship of Faith, in order to become consanguineous with the Father according to the Spirit, it is essential to become a disciple, not to "stand outside" (vv.31-32).

We are called to Perceive, in the profound sense of Listening - not so much materially "seeing" in a direct way, and then "convincing" the Lord.

It is necessary to perceive and grasp: a path to encounter one's own deep layers of being, the truth of inclinations, and of life.

It is decisive to welcome a satiating Word, which becomes language and culture, which has creative power: given to the ears and discovered within. Captured in personal history and reality, and transmitted again.

To turn away from such a founding Word and Eros is to detach oneself from oneself, to disperse into rivulets that do not belong to us, to plunge into emptiness ['emptiness' not understood as a deep energetic state, which prepares new developments].

Paradoxically, both our Freedom and the Salvation of the world are the result of Obedience - but not external, or others'.

Rather, it is tuning in to the part of the Logos within us that is blossoming; truly 'perfect'. No conditioning models.

No a priori correction, no forcing according to prejudice: rather, an eternal Metamorphosis - accompanied by the Word, mysteriously leading from Exodus to Exodus.

No configured "cultural" expectation would lead to full communion with the great divine spark and fullness in each and all.

Realisation of the Kingdom and every day - even outside of time.

To know Christ, it is not enough to look at him outwardly and get caught up in sympathy or religious emotion.

It is the Listening, the habit of life, the involvement, that establish and intimate bonds of authentic harmony with the Master.

A new family is created around Jesus, with bonds of spiritual kinship that are stronger than what the narrow bonds of kinship offered.

The Lord wants other people, born precisely from Perception-presence.

The union is no longer reserved and exclusive; it becomes accessible to anyone and in whatever condition they find themselves - even if they are outwardly "blind", unable to see what is at hand.

Everyone is Church, the Father's House, and thus can realise God's Dream of dwelling with men and walking beside them.

He dwells among us and in us. In his Word, with no more "distance".

In this way, all our actions must tend towards this goal: to form the Temple of God, his household, the Body of the living Christ.

To reach this accomplished goal, an essential means is to host the Vocation that transforms us, a foundation much deeper than any bond or emotion.

Indispensable is not an (initial) experience of enthusiasm, but rather the hosting of the Call that interprets life and becomes a mentality, a dynamism within that guides and flows into peripheral paths.

In ancient Israel, the basis of social coexistence was the large family. Clans and communities were a guarantee of protection of both particular hearths and people.

That bond of real solidarity ensured possession of the land - which gave a sense of freedom - and was the vehicle of cultural transmission, of the way of feeling as a people, and of spirituality itself.

Defending the coexistence that guaranteed global identity was the same as defending the First Covenant.

But in Palestine at the time of Jesus, the life of the clan and the life of the community - broader - were undergoing a decline.

Excessive taxes to be paid to collaborating governments and the Temple, the inevitable rise of the classes who had to sell themselves as slaves for debt, perhaps the more individualistic mentality of the Hellenistic world, imperial threats, and the obligation to welcome, forage, and harbour Roman troops [who often took advantage of even the weakest members of the clan], accentuated the problems of survival.

In addition to this, the severity of purity regulations was a further factor of marginalisation, alongside the growing idea - typical of religions - that there was a link between a heavenly curse and a condition of misery.

The material and protective concerns of the individual family accentuated the detachment from collective moments.

Jesus wanted to expand again the narrow limits of the small hearth brotherhood, and enlarge them to the great household of the Kingdom of God.

A comparison with the parallel passages of the episode shows that Jesus had problems with his natural relatives.

They tended to reabsorb him within the parameters of tradition, for fear of retaliation and because they considered him extremist (perhaps unbalanced).

The Risen One broadens the idea of family and challenges the constraints that distance us from our identity-character, and mission-whether it is the impediments placed by his own, by Peter, by the disciples, by powerful people, or leaders of the official religion. 

As mentioned above, at a time of political subjugation and rigid legalistic religious ideology, the core values of clan and community were weakening due to the situation of social and economic collapse.

The situation of extrinsic control - social and conscience slavery - prevented people from uniting and sharing, forcing them to confine themselves to individual, exclusive dynastic problems.

[Situation of Jesus' time, yet not entirely alien to us, even from the point of view of certain 'charisms' configured in too much detail, and the realities already established on the ground].

Even during the civil war in the late 1960s, the core values of Roman society were weakening.

For the new realm to manifest itself, it was necessary for the idea of coexistence to go beyond the narrow limits of the individual and the tiny household - also from a cultural point of view.

There was a need for a stimulus that opened to community life - understood according to the spirit of the Beatitudes, for a conviviality of differences; even in real, even raw cohabitation.

Even today in the time of global crisis, the goal is an existence no longer disfigured by retreats, nor undermined by immediate needs, disembodied fantasies, or ingrained patterns.

The need arises urgently for a new idea of the universal family, one that goes beyond the fate of habitual micro-relationships [i.e. the group, the movement or even the denomination].

The world we are preparing will no longer make free participation, indulgent and concrete exchange, and overtaking domestication so difficult.

A new idea of universal kinship, fostering exchange and overcoming.

There is another Temple to be built.

To internalise and live the message:

Does your family shut itself in? Is your church group exclusive and does it take over or favour coexistence with outsiders?

Do they only give you ready-made, packaged pills? Do they help you or do they close you off from the openness to the confrontation of ideas, the realisation of yourself, the distant and the abundance of resources in being (personal and others)?