Flame and Peace, Diving and Division. Not tactical quietism
(Lk 12:49-53)
Difference “religiosity and Faith” becomes evident in the comparison between mentality that identifies biblical Fire with punishment, and that of a sacred Flame poured out with passion of love (v.49) that evokes the Gift in our favor.
St Francis proclaimed: «Laudato sie, mi Signore, per frate focu,/ per lo quale ennalumini la notte:/ et ello è bello e iocundo/ et robustoso et forte».
For the little poor man of Assisi, fire was a «noble and useful element among the creatures of the Most High» [Legenda antiqua].
He had with «friar fire» a disconcerting relationship of courtesy. Certainly it didn’t drive out the night in the same way as the Sun, but brought light.
On the contrary, the disciples’ blaze was not very wise: James and John wanted it to incinerate opponents (Lk 9:54).
Before Jesus, John the baptizer awaited a Messiah who still would immerse everyone in a devouring and executioning bonfire (Lk 3:17).
The «fire» of Faith announced by the Person and activity of the Son does not consume, doesn’t corrode; on the contrary, it’s like a Bread: fullness of energy for a complete ‘life’, not a destructive or separating element.
All this Revives people, relationships and surrounding realities. It changes our Relationship with God, with ourselves and our neighbour. Such is the ‘divisions’ proclaimed (v.51): the discrimination of our Call.
In common devotion the error of evaluation or the condition of weakness is considered an infirmity, to be pointed out, corrected, punished.
"Impurities" should not be ‘fused’ into the divine and provident Fire: only normalized according to atavistic prescriptions, or sophisticated ideas à la page.
For life in the Spirit, on the other hand, attention is elsewhere: personal oscillations become possibilities; the fellings, a new Force.
Sense of incapacity, failure and impediments arouse intensity, exchange, dialogue, new elaborations, search for other processes.
Faith is kindled wave by wave, in welcoming and responding to God who reveals himself, calls and still proposes - even transversal mixtures, which entangle the purisms.
Food and Flame are also… our unsatisfactory situations: boulders that seemed to crush and make us negative are taken, hired, becoming gasoline that projects.
«Incarnation» is the recovery of the opposite sides: imperfection becomes a spring, with its Treasures that we do not see, hidden behind dark sides.
They are those slopes that will then dominate our Desire.
In this way, Baptism is not a procedure or a coat of grey colour and common opinion, nor a device that marks, immediately cornering personality and tensions - but an Immersion (v.50).
By taking care of the neglected parts and merging the extraneous or different sides, from the exteriority of things we are brought back to the Origin of what happens.
[Thursday 29th wk. in O.T. October 24, 2024]
