Lamps lit, start now
(Lk 12:35-38)
In order to make it clear what it means to be prepared to leave immediately, Jesus urges our readiness to notice, our ability to perceive.
He does not extinguish the aptitude for unprecedented judgement, and gains amazement.
Because the roles are suddenly reversed - so one has to be open to trust: the seemingly small becomes suddenly “big”.
Old religion drags the problems, and makes one sick, inculcating the spirit of submission and toil, for wages. And the slave remains a slave.
Servant and master are conversely in a reciprocal relationship and incessantly reverse roles.
As Lk says, the Lord himself “will gird himself and make them lie [the position of the lords of the time at solemn banquets] and pass by serving them” as if he were a “deacon” (v.37 Greek text).
This activates a total vigilance, ready to move the whole person, the territories (Fratelli Tutti, n.1: «beyond the place of the world»), the hierarchies.
He who felt “employee” becomes “manager” and protagonist: he acquires an attitude to fullness.
In the Kingdom of God, forms of life change.
In religions without the step of Faith - vice versa - nomenclatures consolidate.
In the Church there is no hoarding up, because our hearts do not live on worldliness and competition: goods are transformed into relationships and possibilities for encounter.
Christ has shown the Way to true enrichment. Thus he has transformed us into perhaps restless, but brisk beings.
We cannot even rest quietly: we have a step that flies by.
Indeed, it seems very strange that this Master does not arrive at the appointed time. Instead, Christ wants to be reinterpreted.
This condition is a source of growth for us: it accentuates our vigilance over events, the folds of history; over the meaning of encounters, the motions of the soul; and so on.
Thus, life in the Spirit challenges and enriches the exuberant side of the personality, accentuating the most singular opportunities for the unprecedented.
The «butler» placed at the service of the House of God and the brethren has the role of helping dynamic discernment, and the task of supporting it.
His service on behalf of others will be all-rounded, so that each one may correspond to the Call and proceed on his or her own feet.
'Blessed' then shall we be (v.38) without condition, but with the belt at our sides, that is, with the attitude of one who leaves a land of bondage.
«This was well known to the primitive Christian community, which considered itself "alien" here below and called its populated nucleuses in the cities "parishes", which means, precisely, colonies of foreigners [in Greek, pároikoi] (cf. I Pt 2: 11). In this way, the first Christians expressed the most important characteristic of the Church, which is precisely the tension of living in this life in light of Heaven» [Pope Benedict, Angelus August 12, 2007]
[Tuesday 29th wk. in O.T. October 21, 2025]
