(Jn 15:9-17)

Mysticism of Joy: being oneself, sudden revelation

Resilience not gritted teeth, and Resemblance not possessive

(Jn 15:9-11)

"Abide in love, my love [...] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love [...] I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full."

Jesus has just used the image of the vineyard to configure the character of his new people and the circulation of life that unites them.

Life of special intensity and temperament.

The allegory of the vine and the branches is now translated into existential terms.

The propagation of divine dynamism in us initiates a particular and accentuated current of love.

The Lord does not ask to be loved, but to receive (before transfusing) God's way - the Gift that descends from the Father and from Him.

The fate of the withered branch [deprived of the sap of the Spirit] and cut off is the sense of futility and anguish (v.6).

But - in the Vineyard - even the cuts, castings, cleanings and purifications (v.2) that life imposes do not prevent it from producing abundant and juicy clusters.

A new song, finally free of dissociation.

In fact, discomfort brings an even more pronounced flow to the bower, a walk of character, and a dilation.

It is the liberating opportunity that re-actualises being, and can overflow.

He wants to bring us to the house that belongs to us, not into a territory of chronicity [nailed to the yoke of the canons].

The farmer is the Father (v.1) who cuts and trims the vine of useless shoots - though they too appear green (v.2) - in order to increase the vitality of the field.

Here we linger, surrendering our forecasts to Grace - in the paradoxical protection of personal concentration.

Let us leave it to Him to bring down the infecund disguises.

In this way, it will be the wise Farmer who extinguishes the dispersive patterns and ignites our voice - the voice that belongs to us.

The energy of metamorphosis that will expand from critical situations will make us be, instead of look like [outside].

From within, the searching gaze will be shifted and made essential, leaving room for the virtue of one's own roots.

Gradually the act that required sterile forcing will be skilfully dismantled - so that we do not close ourselves off in preconceptions.

Apparent strength will have to give way to real strength.

By Way, everyone will accept another self-image; without detaching themselves from living together.

Holding on will give way to flexibility, to vocational melody.

Thus, making way for the authentic way of being.

As we learn to take a good look and rely on all that providentially appears, elastic answers will spring forth.

Personal Joy will pour into the soul - not the fatuous one of euphoria or exaltation, transient of the many leaves [to be e.g. like the others; at all costs 'safe', accompanied or crowded].

Because by not having to hide other preferences, a different identifying character, or our own frailties, we will become stronger.

Without always having to control the situation.

The intimate joy that will activate us will be the fruit of a new awareness, which finally contributes to the 'catholic' conviviality of differences.

Awareness that combines the divine proposal of non-possessive similarity with our capacity to welcome ourselves - not to struggle unnaturally.

Even in vulnerability. Despite the different tastes around.

An ad personam life-wave that becomes uncommon resilience, and different Happiness.

The experience of fullness, of correspondence in understanding the meaning of one's being, is an impossible task in terms of both capacity and project.

Or of cerebral predictions, normalised expectations, intentions of perfection. That would be a grave commandment.

By forcing, by not laying down mental models, by not stepping back a little in the induced thoughts, the feeling of a human being's condition on earth as a conflicting event, woven with restlessness - unfulfilled, tragic, absurd - would finally prevail.

Taking hold of God is not the result of any expectation, nor of emotions, situations on command, but of letting oneself be saved: being introduced into a saved life - which sometimes comes suddenly, always unexpectedly.

Loving (even) God cannot be a devout initiative: it is only an ungritted response to an unthinking and unprepared Manifestation, which precedes and astounds the religious, personal identification of the world.

By remaining in the Father-Son circulation of love, we will be enveloped by an intoxication that intuits the meaning and uniqueness of our seed.

It changes the way we see life, relationships, suffering, and Joy.

Laying down the efforts and brooding, encountering the enigmas and unknown sides, the Wisdom that inhabits us emerges.

To internalise and live the message:

What sap satiates you, the external one?What is your idea of improvement and Happiness?

What is your existential awareness of Revelation?

Confidents, not doers: the friendship of Jesus and between brothers

Current of Love

(Jn 15:12-17)

"Greater love hath no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (v.13).

Total mutual love, which waits for nothing, for nothing, is generally not possible from the condition of precarious creatures, who willingly desire relationships seeking completion.

Unfortunately, such love-Eros not infrequently comes into being summarily. And it happens by confusing gratuitousness and necessity, by mixing the purpose with the means; by entangling individual need with self-giving.

The authentic love movement Comes.

It is a current of resemblances of the divine condition. Transparent syntony with generative value, brought by the Son: "as" and "because" [I have loved you] (v.12 Greek text).

Offhand we might not understand. But only from the acceptance of the proposal 'from above', genuine, Provident, can a shift of gaze begin that activates the path of rebalancing, discoveries, altruism, and return of the Gift.

The circle of empathic initiative and response is the core of the experience of Loving Faith [replacing religious devotion].

Once one has experienced the intoxication and sense of fullness of being, one will never want to leave this new cosmic and personal relationship.

Jn does not speak of love of enemies as Mt 5 does in the Sermon on the Mount, but insists on mutual love (within the community of believers) as a relationship with the divine life itself.

The fourth Gospel is concerned with the consistency and quality of relationships between church members: the first ones deputed to the proclamation of peace, justice and love in the existential peripheries.

It is precisely to those far away that they will preach the new face of God, of society, of person, and they will not be able to live in the duplicity of discipleship.

Of course, that of the intimate life of God is not sacrificial love; it does not demand a spirit of common nomenclature, renunciation, mortification and effort, but rather fidelity to one's deepest vocation.

We are "friends" (vv.14-15) no longer servants of God. The term alludes to equality and mutual benefit in growth, which envelops every firm domestic dimension.

A relational configuration that in an atmosphere of agape makes each one discover his or her own Name - as well as that of the Church capable of communion.

It is the seal of the focal and missionary physiognomy, and vice versa.

Ecclesial Communion itself will not be that of religious uniformity, but the fruit of the exchange of gifts.

Conviviality of differences and recovery of opposites, with a view to the shared enrichment of each in coexistence.

One-sidedness is also banished in terms of the very participation in the current of sovereign love that willingly descends on our senses of permanence, to stir us up.

The confrontation with daily history coming out of the sacristies obliges us to purification and essentiality, makes us creative and available to God's future.

The healthy pluralism of different hues, approaches and styles in living and implementing the Gospel, intends the Voice of the Spirit that helps discernment; it makes us dare.

A variegated, open polyhedron, which turns on each particular voice. Opposites that reflect the peculiar relationship that exists between divine Persons.

The Word of Deliverance itself can thus be firmly reformulated in an unprecedented and personal way, in order to correspond with new answers to new questions.

People and the Church allow themselves to be challenged and keep themselves open, because they originate from the unpredictable Mystery and are precisely animated by personal Faith.

Women and men, new mothers and fathers, wide open to the Gratis that welcomes the opposite - and for the unexpected.

Koinonia' divested, open to the gift and for the gift. Made aware of the depths of God's heart, and of its communion-eucharistic quality.

Such is the Church of Friends. Fraternity ready for the mission: "I have called you friends" (v.15) "I have constituted you so that you may go" (v.16) in the same defenceless Openness.

Difference between religiosity and Faith? Friendship, which is stronger than both cerebral alchemy and voluntarism.

The Friend shares intentions, cultivates communion of life.

The "servant" (v.15) remains unreliable and resentful, because he is a mere executor of others' orders.

External directives do not concern one's own seed, the irreducible hidden roots, the Source from which the heart draws and which belongs to it.

It is our Core: it manifests itself spontaneously; and it exists not by initiative, but by innate, constitutive and given character (v.16).

The trusted Friend is happy not only when he realises himself, but also when he can expand and brighten the life of his beloved.

And he willingly ousts himself from the first seat in favour of the beloved.In this way - and it is worth repeating, because of its terrifying relevance - in the fourth Gospel the notes and appeals about love do not seem to be addressed to those far away.

Rather, they concern the members of the community, so that they do not allow themselves to be carried away by ridiculous infatuations, which are inevitably transient and which would turn into a feeling of sadness or sadness.

In Jn we note precisely a particular concern for individuals and the climate between friends of Faith.

This is because those who pretend to give recommendations on fine manners, roadmaps, humility, transparency, forgiveness, sharing, should first embody in themselves the spirit of selflessness and truth that they preach to others.

In short, the Lord does not ask for 'fruits' [multiple pious, outward-looking works, often tinged with exhibitionism] nor small gloating intimacies, but only one work: Love without duplicity.

In the unique and unprecedented personalisation of the "Fruit" (v.16), Christ does not remain a Model to be imitated, but a real Life that continues in the disciples.

Unique tiger in the engine, inviting the mystery of the founding Eros that expands the I into the You:

In the Friendship; in the opposing feelings that surface; in the growing unity of thought and aspiration; in the people who draw near; in the communion of desire and circumstance... the wills unite.

In such divine-human empathy [which is more persuasive than voluntarism] the codes of conduct, the extrinsic, external project, to which they (first) bow, now weave a dialogue.

Finally, they come together - by 'Name' [a term that in the Gospels indicates in particular the rawness of the Lord's actual event, as well as our personal interpretation and actualization of it].

Here is the kindling and pouring out of Communion, on a high ground of understanding; without concealed conflict. And without servitude.

In short, in the Ideal as in the Dream we prefer Friendship.

And we walk the Path of Faith in the Crucified One - that of the snub and imbalance of love.

To internalise and live the message:

"I can't live without you": How do you distinguish a self-deluded sentimental sphere, from a working proposal of life union?