Between corpses and vultures: different ones in depth

(Lk 17:26-37)

There is a very simple essential discernment: where life is extinguished, not fostered, not cheered nor promoted, the earth becomes an early graveyard, and 'heaven' is populated with whole flocks of vultures.

Photograph of the ageing, stagnant, (accustomed) spiritual monopoly of the West, which no longer makes anything bloom.

It is the bitter result of a religious structure that is perhaps devout, certainly adept at satisfying the senses, but indolent; certainly capillary, expert, and pronouncing on everything, but disjointed in parochialisms of all kinds.

A spectacular institution, yet folded, inwardly estranged and sometimes hostile [which extinguishes the creative urge and does not mix with the hopes of today's woman and man]; from which, unfortunately, the clear presence of the One who clothed the world in Beauty does not transpire. 

The hierarchical pyramid on the ground remains exaggerated, perhaps for the very purpose of self-validation, tightening ranks to make a better body.

The resulting mentality appears totally inert: unable to make us - we voiceless ones - recognise ourselves as the real Reason and End of God's initiative. Even the only authentic Sanctuaries.

We should be living and speaking Relations, filling the heart with dreams. And centres of irradiation, icons of full fulfilment; places of passions that are not static, but respectful of the intimate nature of things.

Conversely, we catch around us flashes of life, yes, young and exuberant and trying to blossom, but obscurely suffocated by too many ties, past or disembodied ideas, established group interests, and overlords.

Here is the crisis of meaning, the truly human time that is failing; as in an anticipation of perdition - out of perspective with the Father, the lover of life.

Convictions and pastoral proposal seem incapable of constituting: they do not hold up, they pale, they do not affect, they do not seek uniqueness.

All this, in spite of the (distracted) army of institutional and capillary realities, which sucks vocations even from lands in the midst of Mission.

All the more reason to start building a profoundly different ecclesiality, one that does not expect to be merely fed by the programmes of professionals of the sacred.

Kingdom of God starting from real life bare and raw; yet, with magic within: befriending what is in each one's journey.

Here there is a more subtle discernment - a feature of today's Gospel passage: the Judgement comes as a surprise.

The smallest problems of everyday existence (the nostalgias of the traditionalists, like the same disembodied ideas of the sophisticates) can become so absorbing that we lose the very sense of imperfection - and in general, the dimension of depth.

The frontiers of the Kingdom are in the world, in people, in their grievances and joys, in happenings - if read as turning points.

Not in convocations where circles of initiates self-represent themselves with a plethora of signs unsupported by life.

The place of 'Judgement' is everywhere.

Especially outside the sacristies: "we want to be a Church that serves, that leaves home, that leaves its temples, its sacristies, to accompany life, sustain hope, be a sign of unity [...] to build bridges, break down walls, sow reconciliation" [from a September 2015 homily in Santiago de Cuba, cited in: Brothers All n.276].

Jesus' invitation is not to be distracted, not even by the minutiae of religiosity.

The manifestation of the end times - that is, the possibility of starting a new world - continually comes: it must be received and made aware.

Kept alive personally.

The decisive Encounter does not happen in prearranged spaces and times: it recurs in a thousand guises, moments and places, but - here is the other salient fact - there are some who become aware, others do not.

The 'division' between those who are associated with the divine life and those who cannot be, does not concern ethics on capital vices, but rather living discernment

It is about even minute reality (vv.31.34-35) and its message - what the person of Faith feels is indestructible consistency, and is total self-revelation.

Without the turning point Faith, the alienating cultic sense fills humanity with appearances, with garments that have become masks and dross - incapable by now of questioning us. Devastating attitude.

Devotion then, which only cares for details or grand visions of the world and shoots straight, fights the reversals of existence and does not grasp its appeals, its richness for us.

Even in the time of the emergency, the leaps forward, the malaise of habituation or petty error, are stopping even the most exuberant spiritual festivals where they were.

That is, in the graves in which we have willingly allowed ourselves to be buried, and we can see this dramatically.The union with Christ pulsating in the soul, and dreaming - everyone's intimate Brother and dazzling measure of much more - wants to open up the Vision to us.

A Vision of alternative heavens and earth. A vision today often enraptured by vain expectations of restoration to 'the way we were'.

We also read it in our hearts in revolt, which want to awaken us from the loculi and the dictatorship of pre-packaged thoughts.

The hidden self thirsts to understand the appeal of the summary, of the 'defects', the call of the two-facedness of situations.

Duplicities that are unfortunately scarcely cultivated in the congealed or one-sided realities, those without prodigy, and which we do not want.

The 'symmetries' that seemed so reassuring do not grow virtues, within weaknesses.

Here then comes the sting of annoyances, even epochal ones: the idea of perfection would not do us as much to shift our gaze, to exodus, to grow, to flourish.

The active 'Judgement' in Christ, on the other hand, conveys the ability to grasp a scenario that we did not know, and to overturn a whole vintage, accustomed approach to existence.

Even reacting suddenly (v.31).

In short, Jesus is calling his own not to walk on air:

Many pious conquests will be at a loss. Many risks of love, both in ordinary and extraordinary events, will be calculated at "gain".

In this way we will be ready to receive the God-in-One.

This is true both in our relations with men, and in the signs of the times and personal events.

We will not be caught unawares by retrospective thinking alone - or the result of opposing attachments - which is satisfied with external practicalities, but does not watch.

The advent of the "Son of Man" (vv.26.30) calls into question. And his Judgement overpowers the distracted, the contracted by habit; with no more capacity for deep reading and intuition.

The Lord conversely grasps the core of existence.

His theology of Incarnation wants to create alliance between our varied primordial powers [all genuine in themselves].

We will thus be recognised as different [living or not]... not in the mannerisms or petty places of 'morality' (vv.31.34).

Not even in the laborious (epidermal) elaboration of the admitted virtues: 'He who seeks to keep his life will lose it; but he who loses it will keep it alive' (Lk 17.33).

All this, rather, in the depth of perception.

To internalise and live the message:

Are you being coached by others or are you edifying yourself and your understanding?

Do you feel secure for assuming the dreams, virtues, hopes, successes of others? That is, for having experienced and recognised them - as a true love story - yourself?

What profound difference do you bring with you in the time of attachments and upheavals?