(Jn 8:31-42)

In the opinion of many Jews, the inheritance they had received was far more precious and reassuring than any decent teaching anyone could impart.

But believers in Christ realise that on the horizon of a saved life, descent is not a prerequisite for superiority, nor does it guarantee any place of prominence in God's order of things.

Not only does ancient religion not grant privileged automatic access, it is incomplete and deficient. It takes away the freedom it promises to bestow upon believers in a superabundant manner.

[The harmonious relationship with Heaven, with oneself and with events, does not take place out of loyalty to cultural or self-dominating principles - which can make themselves the guarantors of total truth].

What then is the relationship between Jesus and Abraham, the father of faith? What is the disciple's relationship with the history of the chosen people, hence with the religion of the patriarchs?

The first Christians experienced that from fidelity to the Word of the Lord came an unusual and precious autonomy; an openness to God that no creed claiming independence already knew.

The relationship of Faith introduces one into a more qualified, personally charged and real - in itself conforming even to the inexperienced and novice: still foreign to any circle of the chosen and experienced.

So what does it mean to be children of Abraham? There are those who imagine they have the 'document' in place, but do not understand that a fixed identity is a trap of vitality. It rejects the Father's design.

Christ's intimates introduce into salvation history an inverted criterion of 'theological prostitution' [cf. v.41: 'fornication'] based on divine wealth. Another kind of covenant.

The follower of Jesus understands that reality has many faces, and he himself has many faces: he is called to integrate them, for a completeness freed from constraints that stagnate in one-sidedness.

Although they are both at home, the 'son' is a blood relative - he does not remain a servant like the slave (of the descendants).

The God of the chosen people says to Abraham: "Go!". It is an order.

The Son proposes: "Come!". It is a throb of communion, which crosses the fence and unfolds the self, regenerating it in the unceasing We.

It is a family virtue that guarantees the overcoming of difficulties, harmonious growth, and fruitful friendship with the problems - as well as the aggressions - that seem to scatter us.

Even under the action of epochal upheavals of established cultures and beliefs, the God-family member can let go, avoiding the phenomenon that stiffens.

For harmonious growth, it is never enough to be grounded in traditions and ways of doing things - even 'contemporary' and approved ways.

One must open oneself up to a new experience, break free from the excess of control, fashion and circles. Whoever grasps himself liberated freely, rests on another platform of being.

It is the adherence of life that convinces one to remain in the Father's dwelling, and there to deposit everything - not the adult inflaming of special circumstances, or even opposition.

While exposing ourselves (as witnesses and prophets), such a habit mitigates fears. It makes us One with the Truth-Fidelity of God.

And we start from that founding core - in which we find our presence, our capacities, our authentic beginnings. Which are not the artificial ones of the 'fathers', or glamour, but ours authentically, and the Father's.

Such a truly ancient hearth side where we learn silence, motive, as well as the embrace of complete life - it helps to break the patterns of existence in all controlled by the cloak of clichés around us.

Being in the Son dissolves from external opinions, from a blanket of 'proper' manners, and from the bundle of "descent" (vv.33.37ff).

Tara not reworked, nor assimilated and made one's own; typical of subordinates, who lack profound experience.

Disciples are neither plagiarised nor indistinct.

Even those who are characterised by promiscuous baggage are actually inspired. As such, they become limpid, disinclined to seduction and compromise.

Emancipated from hammering constraints, they grasp differences and break through boundaries.

The slave of customary devotion and clichés lives under condemnation, because he is too closed within the perimeters.

He seems settled, but so out of home: thus in a reality that stagnates, or advances in an epidermic, moralistic, (in fact) confusing way. Accentuating and emphasising limits.

The son, on the other hand, conquers spaces of the unprecedented; he emancipates himself from the selfishness that annihilates communion, from the self-love that refuses to listen, from the standardisation that cancels uniqueness, from the conformism that makes exceptionalism pale, from the envy that separates and blocks the exchange of gifts, from the competition, even spiritual, that drugs us, from the sloth that discourages and paralyses.

The God of ancient religions is a principal, a pivotal figure of submission and domestication that enervates. 

The Father is the principle of the Freedom that proceeds against the current, without fear of mixing and heterogeneity (vv.41.43).

He enables his children - even hybrids - to rediscover the roots of the sacred sap that animates them, and to encounter the unrepeatable characters that are hidden in their great Desire.

"If ye abide in my word, ye are my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" (Jn 8.31).

Deepening: Spirit of Truth

Satisfying solutions or Spirit of Truth

(Jn 15:26-16:4a)

Faith in the Master is already eternal life, or rather Life of the Eternal (in action here and now).

He himself is Bread of authentic and indestructible existence, though still earthly.

In short, the intimate life of God reaches us in our time.

The first step is a Faith that gives a Vision; an irruption of the Spirit that gives birth from above, thus animating a different - not empty - existence.

The sign of such adherence is to believe Jesus as Son: man manifesting the divine condition.

Christ is Bread of Life also because His Word is creative, and the path of following Him transmits to us the qualities of indestructible Life.

The outpouring of the Spirit arouses in us the same pulsating Heart of the Eternal, which we experience in the deaths and resurrections of daily life and in the long rigmarole of the Vocation (repeated from path to path).

Even in persecution, whoever sees the Son has the Life of the Eternal within him - which always regenerates and disposes new births, other premises and questions, different paths, in an uninterrupted and growing form.

The passion for the Friend unites us to Him, Bread: that is, the Revealer of the Truth that satiates men on their journey towards themselves and the world, who sometimes change their skin, opinions, lifestyles.

In the Vision, we are empowered to directly appropriate, thus attracting and realising the Newness of God - even in advance, wisely.

Through Him, we have a part... in the Father's love for the Son who manifests Himself as personal Lord, and in the outgoing dilated life of the authentic Church.

The "hidden" God of the First Testament, an obstacle that seemed insurmountable, now presents itself in the specifics of the Faith, without the need for fatuous fires to support it.

Because the world of God (in the soul) is different.

One does not enter the Mystery with normal intentions and perfect expectations, let alone success and recognition.

In this case (in the Gospel passage) the apostles' incomprehension comes into the picture.

Indeed, even to us, Jesus' way of manifesting himself often does not seem decipherable.

Even the Jews [actually: the returning Judaizers in the communities of the late 1st century] were waiting to catch him in an overt way, perhaps on a public occasion.

Instead, even in times of 'glorification', the Master seems to want to trace the outward (humble) inappearance of his earthly ministry.

Many expected sensational fireworks in that period they considered 'final'. Instead, no yielding to ideology of power or religion-show.

So things did not go as expected: doubts were not dispelled, ambiguities were not dispelled; the titles of Israel's former nationalist and imperial glory did not reappear at all, on the contrary!

Even today, the choice of Faith is not given to the apparatuses that would guarantee its visibility: no parachutes, no discounts.

Everything then seems to proceed as before, in the summary: to toil for a living and buy, to travel and not, to laugh and cry, to get sick and get well, to work and party... so on and so forth, often in (seemingly senseless) pain; perhaps without any decisive turning points.

But in the same things as always there is a different Light, planted on a new, immediate, relationship of needy humanity with the Father who regenerates us.

He stimulates new Births, to reconnect desires, deep needs, external paths, and increase the intensity of life.

And it is in the mutual knowledge of the roots and furrows of reality that this circle of love between God and his children exists in the first place.

All that has not yet been understood will be recalled by the action of the Spirit. The only reliable impetus, which does not point to vain things.

A relationship between man and Heaven within us, not above.

A friendship that does not primarily contemplate resignation, effort, humiliation... but is reworked in deepening.

This is where the true scope of our hearts - so limited, yet endowed with a mysterious imprint - for the complete, yet personal, life of character comes into play.

In order to avoid intimidation, marginalisation and annoyance, some church members advocated a kind of alliance between Jesus and the Empire, proclaiming a Christ so vague and untethered that he would not scratch anyone.

Some ambitious, 'life-in-the-spirit' troublemakers felt that the time had come to shake off the earthly affair of the carpenter's son - considered weak in itself, short-lived, out of place and time; already extinguished. 

Jn intends to rebalance the attempt to proclaim, diluted in compromises.

The evangelist emphasises that the Risen One is the cipher and engine that bears the soul and generates us in today.

He is the same Son of God who sustained a harsh denunciation and several battles with the authorities.

To the opportunists of his time, the Master had dared to touch positions, vanity and the bag of commerce.

Therefore persecuted, tried, vilified, condemned as subversive, and cursed by God.

In short, the Holy Spirit does not go after butterflies.

The action of the Spirit (which internalises and actualises) and the historical memory of Jesus must always be combined.

Only in such a frank perspective is it possible to grasp the Truth of the Eternal and the Truth of Man in all times and circumstances.

In addition: the Father is the Creator of each of our deepest inclinations, to which he affixes an indelible signature.

It manifests itself in an innate instinct, which wants to germinate, find space, express itself.

We have rooted in our innermost being a unique, invincible Vocation and (plural) faces.

We cannot deny ourselves, our Roots - even where an open-faced testimony would be unattractive.

The Truth about each of us is consequential.

By Grace, we are repositories of an astounding dignity, which even in error (or what is considered error) imparts exceptional desires.

Truth that still restores dreams: an unprecedented hope that activates enthralling passions.

In vain would we have peace and happiness by seeking cultural and social concord, or by playing roles, characters, tasks that do not belong to us - albeit appeasing.

We would become outsiders.

Truth: Faithfulness to God in Christ. And candour in every choice, with our character in relationship and situation.

The rest is calculation and deep disturbance, which will leave us disassociated and sick inside.

To internalise and live the message:

Do you take a stand and face the consequences? When your vocational character is at stake, do you confront and put your face to it or do you blend in?

Do you play coy, value reciprocation, and seek tribute or protection from satisfactory synagogues? Or do you wish to unite your life with Christ?

Freedom Responsibility

"Abba, Father!" (Rom 8:15). What does this mean? St Paul assumes the social system of the ancient world, in which there were the slaves, to whom nothing belonged and who therefore could not be interested in the right course of things. Correspondingly, there were the sons who were also the heirs and who were therefore concerned with the preservation and good administration of their property or the preservation of the state. Since they were free, they also had a responsibility. Regardless of the sociological background of that time, the principle always applies: freedom and responsibility go together. True freedom is demonstrated in responsibility, in a way of acting that assumes co-responsibility for the world, for oneself and for others. Free is the son, to whom the thing belongs and who therefore does not allow it to be destroyed. All worldly responsibilities, of which we have spoken, are, however, partial responsibilities, for a specific sphere, a specific state, etc. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, makes us sons and daughters of God. He draws us into the same responsibility as God for his world, for the whole of humanity. He teaches us to look at the world, at each other and at ourselves with God's eyes. We do good not as slaves who are not free to do otherwise, but we do it because we personally bear responsibility for the world; because we love truth and goodness, because we love God himself and thus also his creatures. This is true freedom, to which the Holy Spirit wants to lead us. The Church Movements want and must be schools of freedom, of this true freedom. There we want to learn this true freedom, not the freedom of slaves, which aims to cut a slice of everyone's cake for itself, even if this is then lacking for the other. We desire true and great freedom, the freedom of heirs, the freedom of God's children. In this world, so full of fictitious freedoms that destroy the environment and mankind, we want, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to learn true freedom together; to build schools of freedom; to show others with our lives that we are free and how beautiful it is to be truly free in the true freedom of the children of God.

[Pope Benedict, Vigil 3 June 2006].

"The truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32)

3. The continuous contamination with deceptive language ends up blurring the inner self of the person. Dostoevsky wrote something remarkable in this regard: "He who lies to himself and listens to his own lies comes to the point where he can no longer distinguish the truth, either within himself or around him, and thus begins to have no more esteem either for himself or for others. Then, because he no longer esteems anyone, he also ceases to love, and then, in the absence of love, in order to feel busy and to distract himself he gives himself up to passions and vulgar pleasures, and because of his vices he becomes like a beast; and all this stems from his constant lying, to others and to himself' (The Brothers Karamazov, II, 2).

How then to defend ourselves? The most radical antidote to the virus of falsehood is to allow ourselves to be purified by the truth. In the Christian view, truth is not just a conceptual reality, which concerns judging things, calling them true or false. Truth is not just bringing obscure things to light, "unveiling reality", as the ancient Greek term for it, aletheia (from a-lethès, "not hidden"), leads one to think. Truth has to do with the whole of life. In the Bible, it carries with it the meanings of support, solidity, trust, as the root 'aman, from which the liturgical Amen also comes. Truth is what one can lean on in order not to fall. In this relational sense, the only truly reliable and trustworthy one on whom one can rely, that is, 'true', is the living God. Here is Jesus' affirmation: "I am the truth" (Jn 14:6). Man, then, discovers and rediscovers the truth when he experiences it in himself as the faithfulness and trustworthiness of the one who loves him. Only this liberates man: "The truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32).

Liberation from falsehood and the search for relationship: these are the two ingredients that cannot be lacking for our words and deeds to be true, authentic, trustworthy. In order to discern the truth, we must sift through what supports communion and promotes the good and what, on the contrary, tends to isolate, divide and oppose. Truth, therefore, is not truly gained when it is imposed as something extrinsic and impersonal; instead, it springs from free relationships between people, in mutual listening. Moreover, one never stops searching for truth, because something false can always creep in, even in saying true things. An impeccable argument may indeed rest on undeniable facts, but if it is used to hurt the other person and to discredit him in the eyes of others, however right it may appear, it is not inhabited by truth. From the fruits we can discern the truth of the utterances: whether they stir up controversy, foment division, instil resignation, or whether, on the other hand, they lead to conscious and mature reflection, to constructive dialogue, to fruitful activity.

[Pope Francis, Message 52nd World Communications Day].