(Mt 24:42-51)
Key to the reading of the Gospel could be the famous expression of St. Augustine: «Timeo Dominum transeuntem».
Incarnation is a direct thread with reality and divine condition together.
Time of the person of faith is like a season of waiting, but not of provisionality: rather, of continuous capitalization and upheaval.
Nor does the moment of the Church take the form of an institutional season, a period of pause - on schedule, with an expiration date.
Certainly, it is not even an age of preparation starting from our ideas, but of acceptance of the Kingdom, which comes in its Appeal - today with very clear proposals (even in subtractions).
We are called to be ready at all times, and fast as a ‘thief at night’...
Maybe “he” wants to take away something that we believe absolutely ours, to wich we are too attached.
From the earliest generations of believers there were groups of visionaries - unfortunately unwary - linked to an idea of imminent catastrophe.
The expectation of the sudden ‘return’ of a Messiah who was to put an end to injustice and to carry out the Final Judgment, was a common expectation of those who wished a new phase of history to be inaugurated.
However, nowhere in the Gospels is it written: Jesus "returns", as if he had strayed away.
He is arriving, of course: «He comes» - he does not "come back".
In the New Testament, the Risen is the One Coming [‘o Erchòmenos], that is, the One who breaks in, who ceaselessly makes himself Present.
The point of Life is to realize, to perceive the Presence of Someone inside something; in day-to-day things and in the events of liberation.
Even in the drama of rebirth from global crisis.
No form of alienation comes from the Gospels: Christ is «with us» at all times; in our commitment to nature, to cultures, to everyone’s existence.
The full, total experience of completeness is not given in particular time.
But eg. the spirit of disinterest that spreads and already makes relationships and things new remains a guarantee of the Kingdom.
Seed and prelude to the alternative world that the Church is called to proclaim and build - including it with open arms.
With at the centre the «Son of Man» who «comes», step by step, we’ll not lose our understanding.
Every moment is good for sharpening perspicacity in the Spirit.
Flexibility of the heart will prevail over predictions, over the imperatives of the mind.
This is the realization and perception of opportunities; opening our eyes, deciphering events, shifting our gaze - in order to grasp the Coming of the Lord, smelling its Meaning, intuiting it as Source of Hope.
In the Eucharist we proclaim precisely the Coming of the Lord, because life in Christ is in every event anticipation and preparation for the spousal Encounter.
From the point of view of Faith, any critical moment cooperates in the good.
It is a Call and opportunity for response, not permanent fear.
[Thursday 21th wk. in O.T. August 28, 2025]
