In all religions, man is invited to bind himself to the divine blessing in order to receive light and strength by submitting to its authority.

The dilemma of the Roman assemblies - reflected here - is whether to close or conversely open the circuit of the sacred.

And whether to customise, or back down and repeat.

The passage from Mark associates the icons of the sea, the cemetery, the wandering possessed, and the Roman legions.

The perspective is that of our baptismal purification in Christ, which drowns impurity and the germs of death.

 

In Semitic literature, the image of the 'sea' alludes to disordered, aimless forces that do not conform to God's plan for man.

Powers that generate chaos in our existence.

'Cemetery' is the bitter panorama of a world that loses the foundation of its being and becoming.

Circle assiduously forced to grope... to solve problems and not permanently lose the wave of life.

The 'swine' is a figure of that kind of irretrievable contamination [a symbol of paganism] that prevented the human being from having a relationship with God - and feeling his welcome.

'Legion' is the name of every power (here religious, political and military) that stifled yearnings for happiness, producing bewilderment, marginalisation, inner division.

Milieu and determining factor of processes that worsened the same congenital indigence.

 

Imperial ideology was threatening and destructive. It appealed to people's fears in order to subdue their consciences.

This was the situation of the people - crumbling inside - before the arrival of Jesus.

The legions then ideologically manipulated popular beliefs about demons - to shatter singular personalities, and accentuate the surrender of the already oppressed masses.

 

Conversely, in the experience of the victory of life over death, the early Christian communities experienced breath of Faith and the return to self - as a therapy of the soul.

They experienced a kind of disproportion and self-control - despite defeats in preaching.

The ancient assembly that once had a horror of contamination began to open the doors of the purist ghetto, making everyone participate.

The church was breaking away from the beliefs common in the capital of the empire, which conveyed perverse competitions, and to the weak a sense of mortifying awe - a lack of autonomy and conscience.

Of course, the early heralds were quick to realise that the new sense of freedom produced a twofold feeling: the oppressed man does not always want to be freed from his alienations and torments.

 

Jesus fascinates and dismays. He brings down the flimsy bonds and common idols.

His Message is decisive and beneficial, but it forces one to upset habits, goals, and all closures.

 

 

God is not a ticket inspector

(Mk 5:18-20)

 

We are called to a more intense enjoyment of existence and to a new "Witness".

The latter is not about effort, renunciation, or easy moralising.

The Lord does not want us to mix with the sick officialdom of those who crowd around him, but rather to walk our own path.

Jesus' invitation (Mk 5:19) astounds.

Ideological demons deaden the being, and are to be cast out - despite the devout masses being satisfied with this.

Perhaps people have become accustomed to harbouring them in the environment to which they remain attached; and by now they consider them part of the unavoidable landscape (Mk 5:1-17).

Here, then, is the adventure of Faith - based on one's experience of God.

In this way, the Baptismal Announcement has the "task" of broadening the orientation and dilating Heaven-earth communication.

This starts from the extraordinariness of the person. For the joy of all.

 

The Prophet disturbs the ancient balances because he does not adapt to the quiet life.

He goes against the tide... out of a need for the intimate hearth, which he feels like a burning, unquenchable bonfire.

He goes against not the opinion of others, but the ever-fresh, crystal-clear water of the ongoing Source.

The innate paradigm that lurks in the Calling imparts to him the vision of a course, an instinct to proceed. Even the essential equipment.

Impulse of life - or exodus - that enables one to set out towards that address, absolute because it is unrepeatable.

The natural interface of the route nestles in the deep identity of each one.

 

Its extraordinary uniqueness, incomparable and unusual, manifests itself in privileged emotional inclinations - and in personal eccentricities - often already detectable at an early age.

The Vocation reveals itself to the soul in a burning desire and through a true image [unique to each, even dreamy but lasting] perceptible to the inner eye, which periodically peeps out.

It is perhaps the panorama of a future situation - not only individually unrepeatable and singular (or otherwise).

It possesses the authentic perfection of even relational character of the divine condition. But with its own point of view - albeit communal and festive - which echoes perseveringly and accompanies the way forward.

 

Interacting with the surroundings and also by contrast, each root will bear fruit.

But any distraction from one's character will become a tiring labyrinth....

Normally there is a struggle between the individual divine spark and the restriction of the addictive environment, already endowed with its own convoluted perceptions.

Consequently, the difficulty of the journey is guaranteed by that hidden icon that is our real and ideal reach.

This is worth far more than the reassurances lavished by preponderant knowledge - on the spot - or dexterity and discipline.

Realising oneself will rhyme with relying, but in the opposite of the ancient sense.

In fact, to achieve one's aspirations, one does not have to improve by imitating 'right' models and become skilled, or impose greater efforts on oneself.

 

As Pope Francis reiterated: "God is not a ticket inspector".

To realise the dream of life one does not have to fixate, obey external voices, and sweat.

Rather, one must let go of one's innate nature, one's quintessence: therein lies the secret of our Happiness.

Here, even by partial attempts and momentary mistakes that recalibrate, everyone finds their own way and realises themselves. He does not always stand in the starting blocks, nor does he feel inferior to his more entitled friends.

He has gained the confidence to please himself and the Father.

Because it produces attractive effects, its spontaneous beauty also involves others.

And it is the one who has found a way to throw off so much ballast: the old artificial posturing, with useless and static things.

By taking a turn... we get back in touch with the ancient energy of exceptional inclination - even in our aches and pains.

 

In pious life, in order to grow, one must normally submit oneself to an expected task, and - if one really wants to excel - exhaust oneself in rigid procedures, which have already been done by others.

Thus one can hope to make a religious, even spiritually athletic or catwalk 'career' - to be co-opted into the upper echelons of bon ton.

The soul that instead runs in the track of its completeness gets out of the way of the swamp mentality (discouraging the unusual) to head towards a new birth and childhood.

Genesis and developments that reactivate interests, or our 'ball' - and spread wings of vivacity. Waves that belong to us.

 

Amazing exemplarity.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

From what alienating power has Faith in Christ saved you?

Back into yourself or something else? What matters to you in community? The healing of dissipated humanity or the usual bonding - insubstantial and to be precipitated - with common idols?

 

 

Faith, caricatures and a different Dishipleship

Mk 5:18-20 [Lk 9:57-62].

 

For the Semites, parental figures indicate the link with ethnicity, tradition, past, and cultural environment.

Jesus seems to exclude the correlation to such figures, although he addresses his own exclusively and singularly.

He never speaks of fathers, but of the Father - who is not a repeater.

He therefore imposes on all a horizontal cut with the customs that could delay or condition his Calling, the profound discovery of the meaning of events, the emergence of a new mentality, the Following.

He diversifies the Vocations, to make each one understand the intimate character, by Name, of the Covenant relationship in the Faith - which does not depersonalise as in religions.

Symbiosis with the surrounding mentality or intellectual knowledge itself can paradoxically obscure precisely the intelligence of the unrepeatable inclinations that in our innermost being manifest the Creator's incomparable signature.

The authentic Appeal grasps woman and man in an exclusive and penetrating way, in the uniqueness of their experience. What Covenant and Mission would they be otherwise?

Sometimes the best thing to do for oneself and one's neighbour is to cut an umbilical cord, and to distance oneself from the expectations of people one habitually associates with.

This decision is essential in order to be able to seek the meaning of the Spirit which is only Personal Love - and becomes the true Passion.

This is where the inner state of individuation and independence must be present to the soul.

By frequenting the same conformist circles, one identifies oneself with people and situations: one thus blocks the centre of expectations and dreams. The doors to other worlds, to another realm, are not opened.

The personality wants its own space of autonomy, because life in its fullness is to experience a fresh cascade of rebirth in Christ - partying together, but standing on one's own two feet.

Impossible for our nature... but the Source of being leads us as a skilful director, always from newness to newness. And his profound Wisdom will make us dance - even if we have never learnt to dance in style. 

What kind of life of faith would it be that pretends to stem the waves of the open sea to keep us always in the most familiar, reassuring bay?

Leaning on family, on friends, on addicted opinion, on the creek of the club or the beach of the movement [in short, wanting to resemble in order to immediately gain consensus] does not allow us to experience new genesis.

Jesus is peremptory, because the choice is decisive.

He who keeps his head down or backwards - or in confrontation - cannot experience the adventure of Faith; he does not live, but drags along the religion of the dead.

He who only stands in the future and has no sense of reality experiences illusions. But he who stays in the past or with the models, stays with skeletons (not only in the wardrobe) and does not perceive the sense of change.

They easily become obsessed or brooding, chronicling. While the novelty of stimuli could introduce him into a chain of unexpected leaps.

This is why hammering family and cultural ties can take away the intensity or character of the Calling by Name.

They erode its necessary space, which is invaded by too many Sirs - who do not belong to us and we do not want. They only block the hidden mechanisms.

In the passionate exodus with Jesus, the pleasure of the Vocation cannot allow others' [and conforming] inclinations to spill over, pervade, occupy our personal world and time.

In order to hear and make the Call to Mission one's own, it is necessary to build an eminent, unassailable, friendly; guarded sphere of the Self - whose pace and horizons we learn to take in time.

This individuating sphere, with its boundaries protected from interference, will help us in the Dialogue of Prayer. And it will distance us from the danger of being absorbed by the common mentality; impersonal, accommodating.

The defence of such dense non-institutional privacy becomes the spring and thrust of our committed life, which does not back down.

In time, such a nest will teach us to express the quality of relationships in an unadorned, but genuine way - even full disagreement with the external winning and empowering, if banal, mentality.

He who chooses otherwise will sooner or later have to compensate for the cut (of himself) with gratifications of various kinds, which will distance him from his own face and from the ideal that intimately corresponds to it.

[Even a dreamy naughtiness can serve to rediscover the intimate Core of the person, the sacred of each].

We are not called upon to conform to a neutral goodness that only wants to be liked on the outside, perhaps because it is afraid of being excluded from the circle or misjudged - even the opposite.

Behind the outlines of each person's personality lies a pearl, which in order to be able to make significant contributions according to the Lord's plan must manifest its own unique nuances.

Especially in the spousal relationship with God, one must not adapt oneself to roles that deeply do not belong to us.

Over time, compromise becomes a habitus that makes one lose the natural tendencies: in them are nested the chromosomes of the Vocation.

The realisation of the unrepeatable missionary nature does not take place according to character, or established and widespread principles - concordist and successful - nor because we go hand in hand with the whole world of veterans [or the "à la page" world].

As opposed to adapting and allowing ourselves to be influenced by irenicism, at a certain point we deviate, to follow the inner Friend who knows where to lead us and does not know the act of agreeing in any case.

Otherwise, having lost the energy-Person and the goal leading to the destination, the Oneness pales in the mediations that hold us hostage - behind outdated events, lines of thought and roles.

Finally, one loses sight of one's founding Eros, which was meant to move desires, our way of knowing the world and activities.

[Result: a Nucleus now blurred, a Source that recycles and does not gush as before, dispersed in the thousand rivulets of transformisms - cunning shortcuts for a career without jolts].

Here, then, are the great dances on nothingness: that of missed dangers - staged as quiet compensation precisely by those whom Christ would call "empty shells" ["makers of vain things": Lk 13:27 original text].

Not infrequently, it is precisely the caste or herd objectives linked to tribal and sectorial thinking that consolidate - they take over from the specific weight and intimacy of values, replaced by facile and conformist slogans or adult slogans that plagiarise existence.

Every missionary knows that entrusting life to mannered, serious and quiet opinions, reassuring initiatives or textbook choices, bears no fruit, indeed it becomes counterproductive.

Concordism seems a refuge that attracts, but it only becomes a den of flattery.

 

According to Chinese thought, in order to gain polish and escape a polluted and worn-out servility, the saints 'are taught by beasts the art of avoiding the harmful effects of domestication, which life in society imposes'. 

Indeed: 'Domestic animals die prematurely. And so do men, whose social conventions forbid spontaneous obedience to the rhythm of universal life'.

"These conventions impose continuous, self-interested, exhausting activity [whereas it is appropriate] to alternate between periods of slow life and jubilation".

"The saint does not submit himself to retreat or fasting except in order to achieve, through ecstasy, to escape for long journeys. This liberation is prepared by life-giving games, which nature teaches".

"One trains oneself for the paradisiacal life by imitating the amusements of animals. To sanctify oneself, one must first brutalise oneself - that is to say, learn from children, from beasts, from plants, the simple and joyful art of living only in view of life."

[M. Granet, The Chinese Thought, Adelphi 2019, kindle pp. 6904-6909].

 

The suggestion of the past to perpetuate, the snare of narrow judgements and the ties of circle can rob us of hidden wealth, stealing the present and the future: this is the real mistake to avoid!

What is important is not to restore the situation, to copy the ancients or the acclaimed and strong, to identify ourselves in order to be quiet and not to fail, but to renew ourselves in order to evolve, to grow, to expand, to amaze.

Otherwise our awkward problems will always be the same and there will be no exuberant Path nor Promised Land, but only a vicious circle of regrets or fake reassurances.

To live the Faith of the real moment - one that does not give up and puts things in line - one cannot be a repeating schoolboy of the place or the fashions, the time or the day before.