(Mk 16: 15-18)
Paul - who is us - manages to detach himself from the tethers of enslavement to an antiquated and selective religion, to launch himself into the risk of the life of Faith in Christ.
He recognizes the Love that well disposes, humanizes, intimately convinces. Power that recovers, reintegrates and makes differences [and his own ‘opposites’] convivial.
He grasps them as the authentic ‘divine trait’ that surclassates the standards of Pharisaic purity to which he had hastily adhered.
All this disassembles him, makes him experience another Kingdom; transmitting a different Vision - with no more impossible conditions of perfection.
He is forced to collapse from the empyrean in which he had placed himself. He falls not from a horse, but from the artificial pedestals of the inherited belief.
Experiences the active dynamics of a Grace that does not overhang, undeserved and prevenient - that takes the first step.
A Spirit of benevolence found even in his own (torn) intimate life, and in the attentive, hospitable character of the first fraternities: he was fascinated by it.
Christ is truly Living in the work of his People, to the extent that it leaps from the distinction and opposition to Communion.
The task looks grandiose and it would seem superior to our strength, but in the meantime we can start a new atmosphere by living in a less distracted way; precisely, announcing «to every creature» (v.15).
The expression contains the invitation to open wide the horizons of salvation even to all creation - of which we are not masters.
After decades of plundering the territory, perhaps we are beginning to understand that God challenges us to be caretakers, not predators.
Risen One proposes a new way, place and time: both to meet ourselves and people, as likewise the plants and animals.
Announcement of Salvation that we are invited to proclaim continues with other very practical signs and messages, which however in nothing resemble “competition” with magicians and soothsayers (vv. 17-18).
«Poisons» - even those that are not easy to identify - are made harmless, not because we pass over them and pretend that they do not exist.
Simply, we take note of our own vocational character and the varied inclinations of others.
Thus - by letting everyone follow their own nature - we become mutually tolerant and richer, improving coexistence.
On this wave, special attention appears to the weak, the sick, the marginalized.
A genuine wise attitude, no longer forced and tiring, dissociated or imposed, but spontaneous and blunt.
With extreme naturalness, precisely the sick become the centre of the family, of groups, of the ecclesial activity, which gradually supplants dirigiste model of the great and self-sufficient ones.
In short, Lord's proposal has always left room for singular contributions, for energies and even instinctive images, for inner struggles - not denigrated from the start as in grim religions.
In this way, Jesus manifested and expressed himself through the Mission of his lovable Community, a place favorable to exchange of gifts, to composition of distances, to profound happiness.
This was his own way of revealing the Father's Love to the world - without excess proclamations. And staying close to us.
[Conversion of St Paul, January 25]
