The «mount» inside, to be moved
(Mt 17:14-20)
The messianicity of Christ and Salvation itself belong both to the characteristic features of Faith and to the stages of Prayer.
Faith and Prayer are domains of the intimate listening, acute perception, spousal [trusting, propulsive, liberating] acceptance.
On this point Jesus rails against the mediocrity of his own (vv.16-17) and is forced to start from scratch (vv.19-20).
Of course, perhaps others also lack Faith, but they very confidentially wish to be helped, well before becoming masters of the crowd (v.14a).
So much so that in his Church still standing at a safe and hesitant distance (v.19), the Lord has to resume introducing the basic catechism - addressed precisely to his intimates.
The passage is structured along the lines of the early catechumenal liturgies: the authentic Messiah wants people enslaved by the ideology of power and false religion to be brought only to Him (v.17; v.19a).
The beginner goes through a life review Face to face with Christ - otherwise he might be plagued by unwise guides; some perhaps dehumanizing.
The young man's own behaviour (v.15) echoes the existential patterns of people subjugated by self-destructive forces - thus in the grip of obsessive, unrelenting lacerations.
It is a harrowing situation: that of one who discovers that he or she has always been deceived [even in the spiritual life] by a whole ideology of unwise mediators, who rather lead us away from the One Saviour.
There are beliefs and forces that induce deep illnesses... like something that has taken hold of us.
Between the convulsive powers and the 'presence' of the Messiah, who brings only life, a no-holds-barred struggle ensues.
Sometimes, even today, it seems that we are not in a position to broaden the existential dimension, give it breath, and solve so many problems.
But evil does not yield suddenly and with clamour, nor by force or insistence of man - but by attunement and Gift [v.21: «But this kind of demons does not come out except by prayer and fasting»].
Prayer makes one step out of the confines and places one in listening; in contact with the deep states of being, with other energies and surprises that one was not aware of: virtues of Grace, which allows one to see the situation with liberated eyes.
For solutions that dissolve upheavals, we do not need conformist rules, but constantly a New Reading (v.21).
Our life is not played out on the initiative of what we are already able to set up and practice - or interpret, design, predict (vv.14-17) - but on Attention (v.21), the first principle of emancipation.
Even rebirth from the current crisis is not so much a matter of “holding” and “resilience”: because the «mountain» (v.20) to be moved is not outside, but within us.
And the rich complexity of our essence demands it.
Thus the obstacles and sour or apparently deadly tones of reality - instead of harming us, making us fall and suffer badly (v.15) - will be nourishing.
Precious opportunities for metamorphosis, regeneration, growth.
[Saturday 18th wk. in O.T. August 8, 2026]
