(Lk 14:12-14)

Inviting the excluded, without a spirit of interest: the Christian community is open to everyone, especially those who have nothing to offer in return.

The Church cannot be complicit with those who turn the world into a business.

And are we really today finally learning to invite for free, not in an even more interested and mercantile way?

We are well aware that the interweaving of the computational circuits behind our actions is astounding, almost as complex as the very complicated computer circuits.

And someone is also looking for sacralization:

Before exposing ourselves in a work, we weigh with incredible rapidity all the possible relapses, the reactions useful or harmful to our interests.

Even during the course of social action, we recalibrate any changes that produce the desired effect, and at the same time the hoped compensation.

If this doesn’t come, surely we imagine that there must have been a (mechanical) fault somewhere.

If we are not careful, much of our existence is transformed into a cybernetic of interest.

It also happens with God.

Instead, it is Love that conquers the world.

It is the unconditional gift that shakes, moves, conquers; it preludes and reflects the Mystery.

In the transformation of one’s own goods into Encounter, Relationship, intimate Life and of others, the source of Joy gushes forth.

Gaiety of completeness of being, Life of the Trinity itself: different Happiness, without due or expected returns; prelude to Resurrection.

A divine existence, not behind the clouds or at the end of history, but from now on.

No reciprocation is really worth such boundless and real vertigo.

Thus the type of participants in the breaking of Bread in churches - today of an increasingly varied mentality - describes the essence of God.

The ‘polyhedron’ becomes an icon and attribute of the tolerant mercy of the Eternal.

But it is not an external or paternalistic patch; nor is it configured as a rescue of the situation [or remorse of conscience].

The condition of sin does not nullify the plan of salvation. Rather, it emphasizes the personal Exodus and the passion of things.

Different faces and circumstances become sacraments of Grace, Love so open that no human narrowness can close.

Even a non-one-way personal formation is well recalled by the thousand unusual presences of a multipolar world [as an intimate and concrete appeal].

In this way, every heterogeneous aspect is now finally appreciated as an added value, instead of being considered a “carnal” or “impurity” expression.

In short, our attitude as sisters and brothers imitates divine magnanimity: we welcome willingly and freely those who are 'different' and those without great energy or appeal.

Not because we are or they are 'good', but so that we all become good. And by being close, together, in an unforeseen, therefore vital way; overeminent one.

To internalize and live the message:

What does not elevate your relationships? and the complete sense of you?

[Monday 31st wk. in O.T.  November 4, 2024]

Among the many gifts that we buy and receive, let us not forget the true gift: to give each other something of ourselves, to give each other something of our time, to open our time to God. In this way anxiety disappears, joy is born, and the feast is created. During the festive meals of these days let us remember the Lord’s words: "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite those who will invite you in return, but invite those whom no one invites and who are not able to invite you" (cf. Lk 14:12-14). This also means: when you give gifts for Christmas, do not give only to those who will give to you in return, but give to those who receive from no one and who cannot give you anything back. This is what God has done: he invites us to his wedding feast, something which we cannot reciprocate, but can only receive with joy. Let us imitate him! Let us love God and, starting from him, let us also love man, so that, starting from man, we can then rediscover God in a new way!

[Pope Benedict, homily 24 December 2006]

12. Is Justice Enough? 

It is not difficult to see that in the modern world the sense of justice has been reawakening on a vast scale; and without doubt this emphasizes that which goes against justice in relationships between individuals, social groups and "classes," between individual peoples and states, and finally between whole political systems, indeed between what are called "worlds." This deep and varied trend, at the basis of which the contemporary human conscience has placed justice, gives proof of the ethical character of the tensions and struggles pervading the world. 

The Church shares with the people of our time this profound and ardent desire for a life which is just in every aspect, nor does she fail to examine the various aspects of the sort of justice that the life of people and society demands. This is confirmed by the field of Catholic social doctrine, greatly developed in the course of the last century. On the lines of this teaching proceed the education and formation of human consciences in the spirit of justice, and also individual undertakings, especially in the sphere of the apostolate of the laity, which are developing in precisely this spirit. 

And yet, it would be difficult not to notice that very often programs which start from the idea of justice and which ought to assist its fulfillment among individuals, groups and human societies, in practice suffer from distortions. Although they continue to appeal to the idea of justice, nevertheless experience shows that other negative forces have gained the upper hand over justice, such as spite, hatred and even cruelty. In such cases, the desire to annihilate the enemy, limit his freedom, or even force him into total dependence, becomes the fundamental motive for action; and this contrasts with the essence of justice, which by its nature tends to establish equality and harmony between the parties in conflict. This kind of abuse of the idea of justice and the practical distortion of it show how far human action can deviate from justice itself, even when it is being undertaken in the name of justice. Not in vain did Christ challenge His listeners, faithful to the doctrine of the Old Testament, for their attitude which was manifested in the words: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."111 This was the form of distortion of justice at that time; and today's forms continue to be modeled on it. It is obvious, in fact, that in the name of an alleged justice (for example, historical justice or class justice) the neighbor is sometimes destroyed, killed, deprived of liberty or stripped of fundamental human rights. The experience of the past and of our own time demonstrates that justice alone is not enough, that it can even lead to the negation and destruction of itself, if that deeper power, which is love, is not allowed to shape human life in its various dimensions. It has been precisely historical experience that, among other things, has led to the formulation of the saying: summum ius, summa iniuria. This statement does not detract from the value of justice and does not minimize the significance of the order that is based upon it; it only indicates, under another aspect, the need to draw from the powers of the spirit which condition the very order of justice, powers which are still more profound. 

The Church, having before her eyes the picture of the generation to which we belong, shares the uneasiness of so many of the people of our time. Moreover, one cannot fail to be worried by the decline of many fundamental values, which constitute an unquestionable good not only for Christian morality but simply for human morality, for moral culture: these values include respect for human life from the moment of conception, respect for marriage in its indissoluble unity, and respect for the stability of the family. Moral permissiveness strikes especially at this most sensitive sphere of life and society. Hand in hand with this go the crisis of truth in human relationships, lack of responsibility for what one says, the purely utilitarian relationship between individual and individual, the loss of a sense of the authentic common good and the ease with which this good is alienated. Finally, there is the "desacralization" that often turns into "dehumanization": the individual and the society for whom nothing is "sacred" suffer moral decay, in spite of appearances.

[Pope John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia]

For salvation there is 'one ticket in'. But with a few caveats. First of all, it is free; and then the holders will surely be women and men who are 'in need of care and healing in body and soul'. It is easy to imagine that in the first places are 'sinners, the poor and the sick', the so-called 'last ones' in short. Celebrating Mass at Santa Marta on Tuesday, 7 November, Pope Francis revived the Gospel image - taken from the passage in Luke (14:15-24) - of the banquet to which the master of the house invites "the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame" after the refusal of the rich who do not understand the value of the gratuitousness of salvation.

"The Gospel texts we have heard this week, these last days, are framed in a banquet," Francis was quick to point out. It is "the Lord who goes to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to dine and there he is rebuked because he does not do his ablutions". Then, the Pope continued, "during the banquet the Lord advises us not to seek the first places because there is the danger that one who is more important will come and the host will say, 'Give way to this one, move over!' That would be a disgrace."

"The passage continues," said the Pontiff, "with the advice the Lord gives to those who are to be invited to a banquet at home". And he points precisely to "those who cannot give you reciprocation, that is, those who have nothing to give you in return". Here is "the gratuitousness of the banquet". So "when he had finished explaining this, one of the diners - this is today's passage - said to Jesus, 'Blessed is he who takes food in the kingdom of God!'" The Lord "answered him with a parable, without explanation, of this man who gave a great dinner and made many guests". But "the first guests did not want to go to dinner, they cared neither about the dinner nor about the people who were there, nor about the Lord who was inviting them: they cared about other things".

And in fact one after the other they began to apologise, So, the Pope pointed out, 'the first one said to him: "I bought a field"; the other: "I bought five pairs of oxen"; another: "I got married"; but each had his own interest and this interest was greater than the invitation'. The fact is, said Francis, that 'these were attached to the interest: what can I gain? So to a free invitation the answer is: 'I don't care, maybe another day, I'm so busy, I can't go'. "Busy" but for his own "interests: busy like that man who wanted, after the harvest of grain, to make stores to enlarge his possessions. Poor man, he died that night".

These people are attached "to interest to such an extent that" they fall into "a slavery of the spirit" and "are incapable of understanding the gratuitousness of the invitation". But "if one does not understand the gratuitousness of God's invitation, one understands nothing," the Pope warned. God's initiative, in fact, "is always gratuitous: what do you have to pay to go to this banquet? The entrance ticket is to be sick, is to be poor, is to be a sinner". Precisely this 'is the ticket of entry: to be needy both in body and soul'. And 'by need', Francis reiterated, is meant 'needing care, needing healing, needing love'.

"Here," the Pontiff explained, "we see the two attitudes". God's "is always gratuitous: to save God does not charge anything, he is free". And also, Francis added, "we say the word, somewhat abstractly, 'universal'", in the sense that to the servant "the 'angry' master" says: "Go out immediately to the squares, to the streets of the city and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame". In Matthew's other version, the master says: "good and bad: all, everyone", because "God's gratuitousness has no limits: everyone, he receives everyone".

"Instead, those who have their own interest," the Pope continued, "do not understand gratuitousness. They are like the son who stayed by his father's side when the youngest left and then, after a long time, he came back poor and the father makes feast and this one does not want to enter that feast, he does not want to enter that feast because he does not understand: "He spent all the money, he spent the inheritance, with the vices, with the sins, you make him feast? And I who am a Catholic, practical, I go to mass every Sunday, I fulfil things, nothing to me?".

The fact is that 'he does not understand the gratuitousness of salvation, he thinks that salvation is the fruit of "I pay and you save me": I pay with this, with this'. Instead "no, salvation is gratuitous". And "if you do not enter into this dynamic of gratuitousness you understand nothing".

Salvation in fact, Francis affirmed, "is a gift from God to which one responds with another gift, the gift of my heart". However, there are those 'who have other interests, when they hear about the gifts: "Yes, it is true, yes, but gifts must be given". And they immediately think: 'Here, I will give this gift and he will give me another one tomorrow and the day after'". Thus there is "always reciprocation".

Instead "the Lord asks nothing in return: only love, faithfulness, as he is love and he is faithful". Because "salvation is not bought, one simply enters the banquet: 'Blessed is he who takes food in the kingdom of God!'". And 'this is salvation'.

In fact, the Pope confided, "I ask myself: what do these people who are unwilling to come to this banquet feel? They feel secure, they feel safe, they feel saved in their own way outside the banquet". And 'they have lost the sense of gratuitousness, they have lost the sense of love and they have lost something greater and more beautiful still, and this is very bad: they have lost the capacity to feel loved'. And, he added, 'when you lose - I am not saying the capacity to love, because that can be recovered - the capacity to feel loved, there is no hope: you have lost everything'.

Moreover, the Pontiff concluded, all this 'makes us think of the words written at the door of Dante's inferno "Leave hope": you have lost everything'. On our part, we must instead look at the master of the house who wants his house to be filled: 'he is so loving that in his gratuitousness he wants to fill the house'. And so "we ask the Lord to save us from losing the capacity to feel loved".

[Pope Francis, S. Marta homily, in L'Osservatore Romano 08/11/2017]

Some days I was in a bar. There were some young people talking about their daily problems, when at a certain point the issue of envy came up.

The discussion on this topic was also taken up by the people who were there and someone joking or not (who knows) expressed: but how do you remove it?

I was reminded of old magical and superstitious practices from when I was a child. Or of all those times I have heard people say in the face of a failure or unfavourable situation: 'I must go and have envy removed'. And not only from simple people, but also from people with a certain degree of culture. As already argued in previous articles, even the man of science has his irrational side.

In the Treccani dictionary under envy we read: 'An unpleasant feeling for a good or quality of others that one would like for oneself, often accompanied by aversion and resentment for the one who possesses it instead'.

It is a feeling we all have and which we refuse to acknowledge because it is often something we are ashamed of. We often believe that this feeling has occult powers and therefore believe that pseudo-magical practices can free us. Nothing could be more illusory.

Melanie Klein wrote the book 'Envy and Gratitude' where she addresses this issue.

This author investigated in depth the first relationship the child has with the mother's breast and then with the mother when it manages to perceive her as a total object. A primary relationship that can also be difficult due to maternal causes: non-acceptance of the baby, difficulties in childbirth, or reluctance to breastfeed. 

But there are also causes that can arise from the baby, and among these is envy, which prevents a good relationship with the breast.

The baby may feel a great deal of anger towards the breast, whether it is perceived as good, i.e. that it satisfies him, or as bad - because it does not satisfy his needs and generates envy because it possesses something he does not have.

And so the infant tries to harm him as he can, by putting his naughty bits in (spitting, urinating, biting, etc.).

In a person a strong presence of envy can damage his way of life, and his relations with others; not because of external causes, but because he cannot understand the good object.

He feels that he has ruined it and made it bad.

He cannot feel its good feelings, and this increases his envy and hatred.

In contrast, the child who is more able to feel love and gratitude for the gift he has received, experiences the good object more.

Consequently, gaining confidence in his own goodness, he will overcome envy and hatred more easily.

The person suffering from envy can hardly enjoy the joys of life, because the relationship with the mother and then with any other object of love is damaged.

Positive feelings encourage the child to keep the milk received as good.

Experiencing gratitude is the basis of pleasure, and later he will be able to establish satisfying relationships, because destructive desires are diminished: his anxieties will be less.

Envy does not make us live well, for the simple reason that it goes against life - and the outside world becomes our enemy.  

Or it makes us live a 'breast' that is too idealised or too bad.

A person with a good capacity to love can love the 'object' while seeing its limitations.

One positive thing that envy can operate in us is the possibility of improving ourselves.  

Often, for those who seek help from a professional, among the various issues that the person brings to analysis, this problem must be addressed. 

If the analyst is well aware of these destructive parts, he will be able to lead the person in front of him to recognise the negative parts, and to mitigate them with love and positive feelings.

The well-adjusted person will bear his or her own feelings of guilt better, and will not need to see them on others.  .

Very often it is difficult to bear ourselves.

Francesco Giovannozzi Psychologist - Psychotherapist.

No forced surrender

(Mk 12:28b-34)

That of the ‘Great commandment’ was the most familiar catechism rule, even to infants.

Jesus is questioned only to retort: and why do you not keep the one commandment that even God fulfils - the Sabbath rest?

The only disposition in which the Father recognizes himself is Love, not some particular precept - because only profound Quality obliges.

The spiritual proposal of the Master makes the narrative of God's people and the practice of the Prophets its own: all heart, feet, hands - and intelligence.

Complete Love for God envelops the creature in every decision [heart], every moment and aspect of its concrete 'life', all its resources [strength].

Mt 22:37 does not explicitly mention this last aspect, perhaps to emphasize that the Father doesn’t absorb energies in any way, but transmits them.

And Jesus adds to the nuances of authentic understanding with God enumerated in the First Testament an unexpected side to those who think of love as a feeling only emotional.

The Lord suggests study, discernment and understanding of our perceptions (v.30) - the mental and deep intelligence aspect that complements Dt 6.

At first glance, it appears to be a secondary facet or even a frill for the qualitative leap from a common religious sense to the wisely and personally configured existence of Faith.

The exact opposite is true: we are children of a Father who does not supplant us, nor absorb our forces or potential, depersonalising us; not even from the mental point of view.

Practicality alone makes us fragile, not very aware; and when we are not convinced, we will not be reliable either, always at the mercy of changing situations and the conformist, fashionable, other people’s opinion.

Jesus doesn’t speak of love for God in terms of intimacy and feeling, but of a totally involving affinity, made less oscillating precisely by the development of our sapiential measure on issues.

Here is a decisive appointment, of the Love in the round.

It would be unnatural to recognise a Lord of Heaven who does not come to meet us and instead towers over us with an objective of his own, which is extrinsic to us and makes us marginal.

Loving «How [and Because] yourself»: it’s a new Genesis in the spirit of Giving.

The paradox suggested by Jesus is that we love for the care to meet - and because we love ourselves - by expanding the I into the You.

God’s «great command» affects real life and concerns not only the quality of relationship with the world and neighbour, but the reflexive global with oneself. 

We should not be afraid of other doctrines and disciplines, neglecting the challenges even intellectual ones that call into question beliefs, works, one’s worldview, language, style, and thought itself.

All added values.

Needless to complain, if the ecclesial realities that do not update or deepen, and remain in the inherited commonplaces [or vogues] slowly decay, then disappear.

Therefore to the ancient notes of true love, the Son of God adds the ‘quality of mind’: we are not gullible, clueless, one-sided.

Our outstretched hands are the result of free and conscious choice. No forced surrender.

«Faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived» [John Paul II].

To internalize and live the message:

What’s Great for you? Do you document and update yourself in order to better correspond to God’s Call?

[31st Sunday in O.T.  B  (Mk 12,28b-34)  November 3, 2024]

The great "commandment": Love

(Mk 12:28-34)

"What is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered [...] The first is: 'Listen to Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your mind and with all your much" (vv.28-30; Deut 6:4-5).

Jesus turns what was the most banal of catechism questions into a crucial question: what is the 'great' commandment? 

Despite the different theological schools, the answer was well known to all: the Sabbath rest, the only prescription observed (even) by God.

The question posed to the Master by the expert in the Law was not so innocent, but "to test him" (Mt 22:35; Lk 10:25) - that is, to answer him: how then do you not fulfil the Sabbath precept?

Christ simplifies the tangle of disputes, about widening or narrowing theoretical cases, and gets to the point.

Always allergic to bickering over doctrines, He makes a proposal of life as a unitive moment of the demands of the Covenant.

All norms have an essence, otherwise they remain a dispersive jumble. They find their spontaneous foundation and natural meaning in the gift of self - but motivated.

But what is the solid point and context of such an invitation? A vague feeling, one emotion among many, a passing motion? Philanthropy? Or an experience?

We are thirsty for affection and grant friendship in an alternating current, so much so that love becomes a source of misunderstandings, rooted in the need to complete each other.

This is why the second commandment appears as an explanation of the first, not a reduction of it [Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31; Lk 10:27].

In the ancient world it made no sense to speak of love towards God, the ineffable Mystery.

It was the Most High who favoured someone by giving him material fortune, and he acknowledged to him a duty of worship, and sacrifices.

Ditto for the unfortunate, at least to avoid retaliation (and keep him good).

With Jesus, one speaks openly of gratuitousness - not simple gratitude - as the unifying core, both of the person and of salvation history.

Gone is the idea of the exchange of favours.

The Father does not need anything; he does not enjoy seeing us submissive and feeling recognised [the pattern of pagan religiosity] as a sovereign would towards his subjects.

The relationship with the Eternal One remains concrete, but honour towards the Most High is manifested by making His plan of good and growth towards man our own, and recognising ourselves in it.

God's plan unfolds ... with a living demand. But there is a Departure, a Centre and an Arrival. In reality, a new Genesis.

In any case, only God's initiative brings out the best in us: more talent, more desire, more interests, more unexpressed capacities, more unseen - instead of soul-denying torments.

It is the difference between religiosity that weakens the personality, and Faith.

Through Faith a special creative relationship is triggered: that of the one who accepts the Calling by Name, as well as the proposals of the Source of being itself - wave upon wave.

They anticipate our initiatives and infallibly guide us to the perfect blossoming of our own and others' Seeds.

Especially in Mt (22:38-39) and Mk (12:29-31) it is clear that love for one's neighbour derives from the experience and awareness of being loved first and unconditionally by God - looked upon, accepted, valued, promoted, gladdened, completed.

One loves not by effort [force is a dirigiste lever: it produces episodes that make life worse] but on the basis of how much we feel loved - and with immediacy, repeatedly, unconditionally.

One loves on the argument of the 'forfeit' already experienced in one's favour by Providence, which gives meaning and value to human acts.

Not out of infatuation with external, induced, however other people's expectations.

Even in the spiritual field, not a few behaviours believed to be able to solve problems, often chronicle them.

In this way, they rely on an idea of permanence - not on the dynamic of vocational gratuitousness, on the unimaginable Gift, to be received.

So the point is to adjust according to resources that come, or the distortion of models, typical of the moralist mentality.

In fact, the scheme of omnipotence in the good, paradoxically, folds the ego and its forces, and distorts its gaze.

But beyond all nuances, we are glad that the first and second commandments are about Love: what we most desire to do and receive. It is an urgency of life.

Yet we must be wise, so that the pattern of paradigms or the urges of natural affection and precipitation do not overwhelm and drag away - overturning - every good intention.

Love does not tolerate the excess of expectations, because it springs from an experience of Perfection that arrives; offered, unexpected, unpredictable. Not already set up according to concatenated and normal intentions.

If authentic, in time we will experience blossoming; not in the expectation of a return, but first and foremost in a Gift outside of time. Because it has already satiated and convinced us - with contemplative amazement - and made us rejoice.

Thus the vocational and foundational Eros will continue to mould us, with its perennially explorative virtue capable of activating new Births.

Personal energy - without the usual baggage of torment, reservations, outwardness... and (again) wrath.

Great Commandment: only Deep Quality obliges

The only disposition in which the Father recognises Himself is Love, all-round and all-round; not some particular precept.

For Jesus there are no rankings in the things of God and man - in fact He showed a marked tendency to summarise the many dispositions - because only the profound Quality obliges.

The spiritual proposition of the Master appropriated the narrative of God's people and the practice of the Prophets: all heart, feet, hands - and intelligence.

Complete Love for God must envelop the creature in every decision [heart].

Likewise, in every moment and aspect of its concrete 'life', and involve all its resources [strength: cf. Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27].

Deut 6:5 (Hebrew text) reads in fact: "with all your 'much'", meaning a concrete participation in both cultic life and material fraternity - providing and helping with one's possessions.

Matthew does not explicitly mention the latter, perhaps to emphasise that the Father does not absorb energies in any way, but transmits them.

But Jesus adds to the nuances of authentic understanding with God enumerated in the First Testament an unexpected side to those who think of love as a delicate feeling only.

The Lord suggests the study, discernment and understanding of our perceptions [Mt 22:37; Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27] accompanied by the mental aspect and deep intelligence (excluded in Deut 6).

At first glance, this seems a secondary facet or even a frill for the qualitative leap from a common religious sense to the existence of wisely and personally configured Faith.

The exact opposite is true: we are children of a Father who does not supplant us, nor does he absorb our potential or energy, depersonalising us.

It is a capital implication of our dignity and promotion - even human - and a specific discriminator in the discernment of Faith in Christ, as opposed to all devotional solutions in search of the Absolute (whatever).

Practicality alone makes us fragile, not very aware; and when we are not convinced, we will not be reliable either, always at the mercy of changing situations and the conformist, fashionable opinion of others.

We not infrequently flee the all-round confrontation that would enrich everyone - precisely because of incompetence.

But we are not one-sided gullible. Being attentive and up-to-date, having the ability to think even critically is a required expansion in the development of one's human, moral, cultural and spiritual vocation.

Trivialities, identifications, impersonal scopiazzature and half-hearted assembly repetitions get in the way of the tide of life, this divine cascade of perennial energy that pulses and does not die down.

On the contrary, it comes with stirring appeals: it calls to open us up to new relationship attractions and other interests, even intellectual; even denominational.

Jesus does not speak of love for God in terms of intimism and sentiment, but of a totally involving affinity, made less uncertain precisely by the development of our sapiential measure, regarding matters.

Devotion swallows up everything. Faith, on the other hand, does not allow itself to be plagiarised by local or external civilisation: it presupposes an ability to competently enter into personal evaluations or those inherent in the community and overall debate - historical and up-to-date.

The testimony of our Hope does not disdain to allow itself to be enriched by dialogue with those who have greater psychological or biblical expertise, specialised pastoral and social, as well as archaeological, bioethical, economic, scientific and so on.

A commitment that shows true interest in the Sacred [of course, all aspects to be evaluated not as school options].

But it must be admitted that one of the most organic expressions of great Catholic theology is what was once called the 'doctrine' of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In the existence of Love, the primacy (also relational) of the Gift of the Spirit was recognised, which completed the possibilities of 'natural' expression of the cardinal and theological virtues, bringing them to fullness.

As many as four of the seven Gifts were related to a character of profound knowledge: Wisdom, Intellect, Counsel and Science.

In short: there is still a decisive appointment here for all-round Love.To indulge in a few jokes along the lines of belief is everyone's domain [individualist or circle], but the ability to enter into it is only of those who have been willing to sift through and experience the issues - because they are more interested in understanding the Face of God and His Design on humanity than in reiterating false narrative certainties.

It would be unnatural to recognise a Master of Heaven who does not come to meet us; as if he towers over us with 'his' objective (extrinsic to us) and thus makes everyone marginal.

[In sects - even those with a good-natured appearance - it is forbidden to delve deeper, to understand: the position is already there, the candidate must "only" adapt].

"As (and because) thou art thyself" [sense of the Greek text: Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31; Lk 10:27]: it is a new Birth of life, new Genesis in the spirit of Gift.

The paradox suggested by Jesus surpasses the ancient norm of Lev 19:18. 

We love not only the children of our people, "by the fact that" we care to meet and want to enrich ourselves together, expanding the I into the Thou.

God's "Great Command" invests real life and concerns not only the quality of our relationship with the world and our neighbour, but the reflexive global with self.

One should not be afraid of other doctrines and disciplines, neglecting analytical challenges beyond the 'organic' ones - the long-term ones.

They all challenge beliefs, works, one's worldview; language, style, and thought itself.

We still have a great need to broaden our minds and become as vast as a panorama. And reharmonise the opposites we drag in.

Hidden Sides and Pearls to which we have not yet given breath, or visibility - and perhaps never considered Allies.

The troubled fate of the prophets remains unique, but it is not the certainties (ancient, or sophisticated, fashionable, à la page) that are the added value of the adventure of Faith in Love - but rather the risk of putting oneself in the balance and the all-round reworking.

It is then useless to complain, if the ecclesial realities that do not update, and remain in the inherited commonplaces, slowly decay, then disappear.

In spite of their resounding heritage and fabulous events.

In this way, the "doctor of the law" may already be close [Mk 12:34; Lk 10:28] but he still has to keep an eye on Jesus, to understand in Him the more dilated sense of the total gift, in the specifically personalising, which is not naive.

The Lord restores the sense of the norms to their profound and original function: to become the viaticum of every encounter that raises events, people of all backgrounds, and creation.

In conclusion, experience and ritual have their fulcrum in the reciprocity of love.

Life in all its facets becomes Liturgy more meaningful than the accredited gesture of worship; its truly broken Bread becomes a convincing call to Communion and Mission.

Even if it does not make the headlines, the authentic thermometer of our journey will not be the volume or the pile of important things we do, but a pulsing of regenerated heart and mind.

That is why to the ancient notes of true Love the Son of God adds the quality of thought: we are not gullible, uninformed, one-sided.

Our outstretched hands are the fruit of free and conscious choice. No forced surrender.

"A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived" [John Paul II].

To internalise and live the message:

What is Great for you? Titles? Having, power, appearing?

What in your experience of Love is the Starting Point, the Centre and the Arrival?

Do you document and update yourself to better correspond to God's Call?

Deep Relationship

Dear brothers and sisters!

This Sunday's Gospel (Mk 12:28-34) re-proposes to us Jesus' teaching on the greatest commandment: the commandment of love, which is twofold: to love God and to love one's neighbour. The Saints, whom we have recently celebrated all together in one solemn feast, are precisely those who, trusting in God's grace, seek to live according to this fundamental law. Indeed, the commandment of love can be fully put into practice by those who live in a deep relationship with God, just as a child becomes capable of love from a good relationship with its mother and father. St John of Avila, whom I have recently proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, writes at the beginning of his Treatise on the Love of God: 'The cause,' he says, 'that most impels our heart to love God is to consider deeply the love He has had for us... This, more than benefits, impels the heart to love; for he who gives another a benefit, gives him something he possesses; but he who loves, gives himself with all he has, without anything else left to give' (No. 1). Before being a command - love is not a command - it is a gift, a reality that God makes us know and experience, so that, like a seed, it can also germinate within us and develop in our lives.

If God's love has taken deep root in a person, that person is able to love even those who do not deserve it, as God does towards us. A father and mother do not love their children only when they deserve it: they love them always, even if they naturally let them know when they are wrong. From God we learn to always and only want good and never evil. We learn to look at the other not only with our eyes, but with God's gaze, which is the gaze of Jesus Christ. A gaze that starts from the heart and does not stop at the surface, goes beyond appearances and manages to grasp the other person's deepest expectations: expectations of being listened to, of gratuitous attention; in a word: of love. But the reverse also occurs: that by opening myself to the other as he is, by going out to meet him, by making myself available to him, I also open myself up to knowing God, to feeling that he is there and that he is good. Love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable and stand in a reciprocal relationship. Jesus invented neither one nor the other, but revealed that they are, after all, one and the same commandment, and he did so not only with his words, but above all with his testimony: the very Person of Jesus and his entire mystery embody the unity of love of God and neighbour, like the two arms of the Cross, vertical and horizontal. In the Eucharist He gives us this twofold love, giving us Himself, so that, nourished by this Bread, we may love one another as He has loved us.

Dear friends, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, we pray that every Christian may know how to show his faith in the one true God with a limpid witness of love for his neighbour.

(Pope Benedict, Angelus 4 November 2012)

Since the beginning of my pontificate, I have considered the dialogue of the Church with the cultures of our time to be a vital field, in which the destiny of the world is at stake at this end of the 20th century. In fact, there is a fundamental dimension, capable of consolidating or shaking to the foundations the systems that structure the whole of humanity, and of freeing human existence, both individual and collective, from the threats that weigh upon it. This fundamental dimension is man, in his entirety. Now man lives a fully human life thanks to culture. 'Yes, man's future depends on culture', I declared in my speech on 2 June 1980 at UNESCO, addressing interlocutors so diverse in their origin and convictions, adding: 'We find ourselves on the ground of culture, a fundamental reality that unites us... We find ourselves around man and in a certain sense, in man'.

Picking up the rich inheritance of the Ecumenical Council, of the Synod of Bishops and of my venerable predecessor Paul VI, on 1 and 2 June 1980 I proclaimed in Paris, first at the Catholic Institute, and then before the exceptional assembly of UNESCO, the organic and constitutive bond that exists between Christianity and culture, with man, therefore, in his very humanity. This bond of the Gospel with man, I said in my speech before that areopagus of men and women of culture and science from all over the world, 'is, in effect, the creator of culture in its very foundation'. And, if culture is what makes man, as man, become more man, then man's very destiny is at stake in it. Hence the importance for the Church, which is responsible for it, of attentive and far-sighted pastoral action with regard to culture, in particular what is called living culture, that is, the set of principles and values that make up the ethos of a people: "The synthesis between culture and faith is not only a requirement of culture, but also of faith... A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived" ("Discorso ai partecipanti al Congresso Nazionale del Movimento ecclesiale di impegno culturale": "Insegnamenti", V, 1 [1982] 131), as I said on 16 January 1982.

On the other hand, there is an urgent need for our contemporaries, and Catholics in particular, to seriously question the conditions that underlie the development of peoples. It is increasingly evident that cultural progress is intimately linked to the construction of a fairer and more fraternal world. As I said in Hiroshima, on 25 February 1981, to the representatives of science and culture gathered at the United Nations University: 'The construction of a more just humanity or of a more united international community is not a dream or a vain ideal. It is a moral imperative, a sacred duty, which man's intellectual and spiritual genius can meet by a new mobilisation of everyone's talents and energies and by harnessing all man's technical and cultural resources" ("Teachings", IV 1 [1981] 545).

Consequently, by virtue of my apostolic mission, I feel the responsibility incumbent upon me, in the heart of the collegiality of the universal Church, and in contact and agreement with the local Churches, to intensify the Holy See's relations with all the achievements of culture, ensuring also an original relationship in a fruitful international collaboration, within the family of nations, that is, of the great "communities of men united by different bonds, but above all, essentially by culture" ("Address to UNESCO", 2 June 1980: "Teachings" III [1980] 1636ff).

For this reason, I decided to found and establish a Council for Culture, capable of giving the whole Church a common impulse in the encounter, continually renewed, of the saving message of the Gospel with the plurality of cultures, in the diversity of peoples, to whom it must bring its fruits of grace.

[Pope John Paul II, Letter instituting the Pontifical Council for Culture, 20 May 1982]

At the heart of this Sunday’s Gospel passage (cf. Mk 12:28b-34), there is the commandment of love: love of God and love of neighbour. A scribe asks Jesus: “Which commandment is the first of all?” (v. 28). He responds by quoting the profession of faith with which every Israelite opens and closes his day, and begins with the words “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut 6:4). In this manner Israel safeguards its faith in the fundamental reality of its whole creed: only one Lord exists and that Lord is ‘ours’ in the sense that he is bound to us by an indissoluble pact; he loved us, loves us, and will love us for ever. It is from this source, this love of God, that the twofold commandment comes to us: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.... You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mk 12:30-31).

In choosing these two Words addressed by God to his people and by putting them together, Jesus taught once and for all that love for God and love for neighbour are inseparable; moreover, they sustain one another. Even if set in a sequence, they are two sides of a single coin: experienced together they are a believer’s strength! To love God is to live of him and for him, for what he is and for what he does. Our God is unmitigated giving; he is unlimited forgiveness; he is a relationship that promotes and fosters. Therefore, to love God means to invest our energies each day to be his assistants in the unmitigated service of our neighbour, in trying to forgive without limitations, and in cultivating relationships of communion and fraternity.

Mark the Evangelist does not bother to specify who the neighbour is, because a neighbour is a person whom I meet on the journey, in my days. It is not a matter of pre-selecting my neighbour: this is not Christian. I think my neighbour is the one I have chosen ahead of time: no, this is not Christian, it is pagan; but it is about having eyes to see and a heart to want what is good for him or her. If we practice seeing with Jesus’ gaze, we will always be listening and be close to those in need. Of course our neighbour’s needs require effective responses, but even beforehand they require sharing. With one look we can say that the hungry need not just a bowl of soup, but also a smile, to be listened to and also a prayer, perhaps said together. Today’s Gospel passage invites us all to be projected not only toward the needs of our poorest brothers and sisters, but above all to be attentive to their need for fraternal closeness, for a meaning to life, and for tenderness. This challenges our Christian communities: it means avoiding the risk of being communities that have many initiatives but few relationships; the risk of being community ‘service stations’ but with little company, in the full and Christian sense of this term.

God, who is love, created us to love and so that we can love others while remaining united with him. It would be misleading to claim to love our neighbour without loving God; and it would also be deceptive to claim to love God without loving our neighbour. The two dimensions of love, for God and for neighbour, in their unity characterize the disciple of Christ. May the Virgin Mary help us to welcome and bear witness in everyday life to this luminous lesson.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 4 November 2018]