Where is the heart of the Church?

(Lk 12:32-48)

 

    "Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be" (v. 34). This is not a personal or institutional problem that has been abused, rendered insipid, or treated with facile irony.

To ignore it is to give it further breathing space, allowing it to grow out of all proportion making it even more out of step with the times and difficult to understand (and to identify remedies).

All this, however, must be done by putting aside hasty conclusions... in a spirit of broader understanding. It remains clear that in order to understand itself and activate different resources, every community must go through moments of severe testing.

Even for denominational churches with a long and prestigious tradition, the awareness of being losers in this respect today is essential in order to find themselves again. Overcoming the impasse... moving forward, 'going out'.

 

 

We read in the Encyclical 'Spe Salvi' n.2 ('Faith is Hope'):

 

'Hope is a central word of biblical faith - to the point that in several passages the words 'faith' and 'hope' seem interchangeable [...]

How decisive it was for the awareness of the first Christians to have received the gift of a reliable hope is also evident when Christian existence is compared with life before faith or with the situation of followers of other religions [...]

Their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emanated from their contradictory myths. Despite their gods, they were 'godless' and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing an obscure future. 'In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus' (From nothing we quickly fall back into nothing), says an epitaph from that time [...]

A distinctive feature of Christians is that they have a future: it is not that they know in detail what awaits them, but they know in general that their life does not end in emptiness.

Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does the present become livable. So we can now say: Christianity was not just "good news" – a communication of previously unknown content.

In our language, we would say: the Christian message was not only 'informative', but 'performative'. This means that the Gospel is not only a communication of things that can be known, but a communication that produces facts and changes life.

The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. Those who have hope live differently; they have been given a new life.

 

In the form of the Relationship, everything opens up to an intense life – one that integrates and transcends self-love and the thirst for domination.

This frees us from the 'old', that is, it closes a cycle of paths already set out – to make us return as newborns.

Hope that has weight dismantles the non-essential; it expels the noise of thoughts that are no longer in tune with our growth and introduces dreamy energies, a wealth of possibilities.

There will be initial resistance, but development is on the cards.

Hope sacrifices ballast and activates us according to the 'inner divine'. It throws open the doors to a new, brighter and more appropriate phase.

 

The treasures of the earth quickly blind us; in the same way, they pass: suddenly. The age of global crisis throws this in our faces.

Yet it is a necessary pain.

We understand: new paths are not traced by possessions, nor by devout memories, but by the Emptiness that acts as a gap between common, predictable, reassuring superficialities.

Religiousness that is good for all seasons gives way to the new life of Faith.

This is where the Art of discernment and pastoral care comes in: it should be able to introduce new competitive energies, different - cosmic and personal - that prepare new, open, free syntheses.

We know this, yet in some circles (prestigious and already extremely wealthy) the desire to possess under the guise of necessity prevents us from seeing clearly.

This also happens to long-standing consecrated persons - it is not clear why such greedy, summary duplicity exists.

 

Do we still want to emerge, causing further confusion? Deep down, we are dissatisfied with our mediocre choices.

At the beginning of our vocation, we felt the need for a relationship that would give meaning and a centre to our daily lives...

Then we strayed, perhaps out of dissatisfaction or for reasons of calculation and convenience - and the dulling of our eyes, sick with greed, prevailed. First here and there, gradually taking over our souls.

Even among some leaders and prominent members of the Church, the basis of existence has become a bank account with many zeros.

Thus... the vain scene, the bag of commerce, the thrill of climbing the ladder, in various realities have supplanted true hearts - and the eyes themselves.

It is as if there is another, cheap experience of the 'divine': between one psalm and another, feeling powerful, secure and respected by those around you becomes better than love.

(Do God and accumulation give different orders? No problem: let's pretend that it is done for 'His' glory).

And so much for the common good.

Quite a few are realising that counting is the most popular sport in various pious multi-plant companies, fantastically embellished with events and initiatives (to cover up what is really going on).

And the litmus test is precisely that petty scrutiny (vv. 22-23) which, behind thick curtains, holds back, judges and even keeps others at a distance. With a gaze that closes the horizon of existence: what counts is what is immediately at hand and convenient.

An apparently excessive belief - coincidentally without the importance of Hope - is condemning us to the worst birth rate in the world.

The panorama of our devout little villages and towns is disheartening. But we revel in our own little niche and our petty situation.

The important thing is that everything is superficially adorned.

Under the distinctive bell tower that sets the rhythm for the usual things, many people keep 'their' (too much) for themselves, content to sanctify their selfishness with the display of beautiful statues, customs, banners, colourful costumes and mannerisms.

Instead, according to the Gospels, in attempts and journeys of faith that are not satisfied with empty spirituality, life becomes luminous with creative love that blossoms again and puts everyone at ease.

Even the old man can re-emerge in this new spirit, this time perennial. Because there are other heights. Because what makes us intimate with God is nothing external.

The authentic Church, inspired by clear 'visions' - without papier-mâché and duplicity - always reveals something portentous: fruitfulness from nothingness, life from the outpouring of life, birth from apparent sterility.

A river of unexpected harmonies will reconnect the reading of events and the actions of believers to the work of the Spirit, without barriers.

Because when someone gives up normalised thinking and settles down, the new advances.

The choice is now inexorable: between death and life; between greed, ageing and darkness (v. 23), or Happiness.

The first step is to admit that we have a journey to make.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

Where is your treasure? Are your heart and your eyes simple?

Have you ever experienced aspects of yourself that others judge inconclusive (from a material point of view) but which have instead prepared you for new paths?

 

 

Lamps lit, leave immediately

 

Parishes: striving towards Heaven, without weighing down or hindering

(Lk 12:35-38)

 

To help us understand what it means to be ready to leave immediately, Jesus urges us to be aware, to use our powers of perception.

He does not extinguish our capacity for new judgements, and he amazes us.

Because roles are suddenly reversed - so we must be open to trust: those who seem small become 'great' in an instant.

Ancient religion drags problems along with it and makes people sick, instilling a spirit of submission and toil in exchange for wages. The slave remains a slave, even if he pursues who knows what.

In the adventure of faith, we do not commit ourselves to goals that do not correspond to us. In addition, servant and master are in a relationship of reciprocity and constantly reverse roles.

As Luke says, the Lord himself 'will gird himself and have them recline at table [the position of the lords of the time during solemn banquets] and will come and serve them' as if he were a 'deacon' (v. 37 Greek text).

This activates a total vigilance, ready to move the whole person, territories (Fratelli Tutti, n. 1: 'beyond the place of the world'), hierarchies.

Those who felt like 'employees' become 'directors' and protagonists: they acquire an attitude of fullness.

In the Kingdom of God, forms of life change. In religions, on the other hand, nomenclatures are consolidated, and the very symptoms of errors are even sacralised.

Many devotional forms have a different foundation, a very different idea of how to enrich existence, compared to the experience of Faith.

In the Church, we do not hoard, because our hearts do not live on worldliness and competition: goods are transformed into relationships and opportunities for encounter.

The particular task and entire existence of each person becomes a source of joy for those in despair, nourishment for those seeking understanding, listening, acceptance, and 'true recognition' (Fratelli Tutti, 221).

The Tao Te Ching (LXVI) says "The saint stands above and the people are not burdened; he stands before and the people are not hindered."

Christ showed us the Way of authentic enrichment. Thus, he transformed us into beings who are perhaps restless, but eager.

We cannot sleep even at night, take holidays, or rest in a peaceful, relaxed, normal way, but we have a step that skims over things.

We sigh constantly, not for material fortune, but because the opportunity of life might not find us ready to recognise it.

Augustine said: "Timeo Dominum transeuntem".

In religions, everything seems clear and predetermined - and in reality everything is left in doubt and to a strange hypothesis of a longed-for future.

And indeed, it is very strange that this Master does not arrive at the appointed time.

Instead, Christ wants to be reinterpreted.

He is alive in us, our kin and co-heirs - Incarnate, all real. If so, he will also spread among the rebels, changing their outlook.

This condition is a source of growth for us: it accentuates our vigilance over events, the folds of history; on the meaning of encounters, the movements of the soul, and so on.

Therefore, life in the Spirit challenges and enriches the exuberant side of the personality, accentuating the most unique opportunities for something new.

The Lord even allows wandering: sometimes we need to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves - and to coincide with what we are in essence and what we are becoming.

The 'steward' placed at the service of the House of God and of his brothers and sisters has the task of helping dynamic discernment and the duty to support it.

His service to others will be all-encompassing, so that each person can respond to the Call and proceed on their own two feet.

And we will do so willingly, without any effort, because of the excess of Grace that meets us: despite and because of the uncertainty, because we are richly endowed by God.

Blessed (v. 38) without condition, but with a belt around their waists, that is, with the attitude of those who leave a land of slavery.

"The early Christian community was well aware of this. It considered itself a 'stranger' here on earth and called its urban communities 'parishes', which means colonies of foreigners [in Greek pàroikoi] (cf. 1 Peter 2:11). In this way, the early Christians expressed the most important characteristic of the Church, which is precisely its tension towards heaven."

(Pope Benedict, Angelus, 12 August 2007)

 

To internalise and live the message:

Does the Christian community accentuate your personal perception or dampen it? Does it make you live in a stagnant and predictable state, where all solutions are ready, complete and already tried and tested, or does it make you start again with readiness, immediately and independently?

 

 

Presence and Coming without contention, not "return"

(Lk 12:39-48)

 

Jesus pulls the ears of those at home, not out of self-harm: it is not love or freedom to be unable to understand which direction to go in, to have no goal that gives meaning to our pilgrimage in search.

Already in the communities of the first centuries, the idea of the end of the world and the immediate "return" of the Risen One to set things right (like any Messiah) was alive.

So some people no longer committed themselves. Others remained with their noses in the air, scanning the sky.

But the coming of Christ is always imminent, and the judgment on the things of the world has already been pronounced on the Cross.

The final phase of history begins with this seed of faith, of alternative persons and societies, but the history to be written is the task of the Church.

The new heaven and the new earth of the divinising Presence are pulsating. He is already beside us as we struggle for the fulfilment and full life of all.

For this reason, the epigraph of the encyclical Fratelli Tutti features the practical and eloquent figure of St. Francis, 'who felt himself to be the brother of the sun, the sea and the wind, and knew that he was even more united with those who were of his own flesh. Everywhere he sowed peace and walked alongside the poor, the abandoned, the sick, the rejected, the least" (n. 2).

The Gospels and recent Magisterium - no longer neutral - sing the de profundis to the intimate and empty spirituality that has marked mass Catholicism in the West.

 

The reason why nowhere in the Gospels is it written that Jesus 'will return' is clear: although imperceptible to the senses, he has never left us.

He enjoys a full Life, unconditioned by space and time.

He is the Coming One (Greek text, passim): the one who comes without ceasing and becomes a travelling companion - not only in exceptional figures such as the Saint of Assisi.

However, already in the 80s of the first century, the attention of impressionable people was shifting - unfortunately - to the Return instead of the providential Coming - the cornerstone of positive Faith in life itself, which reveals the Face of God-With-Us.

'Unceasing coming' is the perception of his Friendship in things, even ordinary things, in the Appeal of those in need, in the Call of intuitions, of the Word and of those who accompany us on our journey...

'Coming' is: in the goals that smile at us, but even and perhaps even more so in the obstacles we have to face - or get around, by shifting our gaze; in the disappointments that lead us to seek a less external joy.

The "Advent" of Christ is the vocational instinct that activates us, the sense of living fraternity, the tangible friendship of all those who know how to understand, introduce and coordinate - as well as a preference for quality relationships; trust in the genius of the times, even in everyday events.

Thus, according to the Lord's desire, the good leader of the Christian community will become a servant of the lost, will not appropriate the goods of the Church, and will become vigilant also in favour of others.

It is essential that those at the top of the class do not allow themselves to be carried away by the adolescent desire for self-affirmation, with greed for privileges and the hoarding of important tasks.

Fidelity is an attitude required especially of those who have a particular and precise task in assemblies: it is forbidden to abuse it!

The only desire they should feel is to hasten the hour of Communion and introduce a regenerating energy (even in roles).

Peter, however, is conditioned by false traditional teaching, which is completely antithetical, and he cannot conceive of it.

According to the Master, however, community leaders and those in charge are not privileged or elected, exclusive individuals, but rather those who are asked to do more and better - not for their own benefit!

The world and the Church need fewer false masters - rather, diligent and convinced servants who attract others by their direct witness.

The only plausible goal of the particular journey in the power of the Spirit is maternal and universal in character: 'to bring forth a new world, where we are all brothers and sisters' (FT, 278).

 

The Tao says (LXVI): 'The reason why rivers and seas can be sovereign over a hundred valleys is that they keep themselves below them: therefore they can be sovereign over a hundred valleys. So whoever wants to be above the people with words puts himself below them, whoever wants to be in front of the people with his person puts himself behind them'.

And Master Ho Shang-Kung comments: "The world is not satisfied with the saint, because he does not contend with others for first or last place."

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

Have you met servants or masters in your community?

Do your guides help you to seek the leap, authentic fulfilment, inner joy?

 

 

 

The Eucharistic breath of service-rest

 

Freedom and strengths, even in the early stages

(Lk 12:32-48)

 

The light must remain on. I remember that in the seminary we were not allowed to put a sign on our door saying "do not disturb" or "I am resting". It was forbidden to lock the door, because we had to remain completely available for any request.

The entire educational period was conceived in terms of a profound personal interiorisation to discover one's own unique, unrepeatable vocation - instead of always looking at one's suitcase.

Our superiors wanted to educate us to be images of a Servant God, not indifferent, who knows how to welcome and wipe away every tear - even the most extravagant. Not to chase whims, but to help us dig deep within ourselves, bring our Core to the fore and look ourselves in the face.

It was impossible to face our imbalances with a compartmentalised mindset, which was already reassuring: we experienced life that went beyond our concerns, as if skilfully guided. 

In this way, we learned to reconsider everything we had mistaken for a winning weapon. The knowledge we considered acquired, the opinions of others and conventional wisdom... Baggage that would not allow any ray of light to shine through.

Returning to ourselves under a thousand different stimuli, we became more capable of perceiving the path that corresponded to us personally, repeatedly practising listening and entrusting events to the infallible instinct of the Call, which opened up the path of choices.

The baggage of previous experiences, skills and memories was recovered, absorbed and reinvested in a way that seemed mysteriously tailored to each of us.

Unfortunately, there were examples of very bright and hopeful young people who collapsed as soon as they were hit by the reality of parish life in Rome. For us from the provinces, it seemed very strange.

We would understand later. In the spiritual and pastoral trench warfare that was already looming, it would be the effort of compromise and circumstantial performance (to be staged) that would make us sad, insecure and clumsy - both with ourselves and with others.

 

The Gospel refers to material riches, which come and go. Even in reference to them, the fundamental question remains. How should we relate to possessions? And where is the community treasure?

Even in our personal nest egg.

An environment or an assembly (even one still in its infancy) can convey to each person a fullness of fortune - patrimonial (if lacking) and above all existential - where exceptional multifaceted resources are transformed into relationships.

Even in a vital and capitalising context, the threshold of Happiness remains in the global experience of one's own intimate Hidden Pearl, which some may judge inconclusive. But it will become global. Distinctive of the Lord.

In a living Church, this Ruby will have the opportunity to manifest itself and grow - so that even in times of crisis we feel free and welcomed; adequate. An indispensable condition for Love and for all energy well spent.

For this reason, Jesus insists on awareness and personalisation, without which it is impossible - in recognising one's own contribution - to have a complete experience of both gifts and virtues.

In a family where we breathe a spirit of openness, we are much more relaxed in harmonising our charisma, able to know ourselves fully.

The community of children is one of effortlessly rolled-up sleeves, because the conviviality of differences is also the ideal nest for discovering and sifting through our unique talents, the identity and character of our Roots.

Therein lies our Unpublished, which in times of excessive busyness can fade, yet also draws us into dampening situations.

Only by not dissolving into the indistinctness of conformity can we make our contribution clearer and avoid dead time in relationships, building Friendship in continuity, without confused jumble that buries the gratuitousness of inclinations.

Only by respecting the uniqueness of both women and men can we avoid the alternation of seasons of communion with seasons of selfishness. And when they do occur, we make them healthy and meaningful.

Only by examining our own Gift can we accept the gift of others and become Blessed (vv. 37-38, 43), that is, enjoy a fulfilled existence.

 

In the world within our reach, nothing seems lasting, everything is very uncertain, illusory and changeable. How can we know that Abundance that remains (vv. 33-34)?

Strategies for social success or self-knowledge often reflect the sensibilities of others or are copied from roles; they then crack the deep self and make us even more insecure.

Convictions and beliefs absorbed from outside cause us to cling to fixed behaviours; then we become saddened by the inevitable failure.

The world we represent is temporary and lives with a clock in its hand, but our eternal side does not have the flavour of the surface: it belongs to the deep era of intimate roots, it has a different age.

We are not made of deforming mentalities and learned customs, nor of hasty decisions. The seed of personal and community essence is more creative, present and stronger than all conformist expectations.

It will break through our walls, even if common thinking does not want it to, and it will surprise us (otherwise it will leave a terrible legacy).

We must therefore create the conditions so that the relational impetus of our time does not generate brainwashing subjugation: this flattens conscious exchange and the renewal of participation.

In this way, the Way of the new Eucharistic Wisdom of the Church will flow spontaneously through the support (and advice) of mutual perception, allowing each person to bring out and develop the inestimable strangeness of their own timelessness.

A higher call for an inclination towards listening, hospitality and discernment, which chisel away at the different polarities - supportive and subjective - so that they come into play and are; doing what they must.

Marginalising others and one's own eccentricity - where the often-held ruby of the Call by Name lurks - would be an early death.

 

In every polyphonic orchestra, every instrument must have time and space that are not different from the expression of its unique physiognomy.

This enriches the consonance and appeal of perceptions, without allowing oneself to be steamrolled by moralism [counting faults] or the din of bass drums that humiliate the non-conformist ability to notice (vv. 35-40, 45-46).

Authentic agreement of Alliance is what makes the character of qualities shine. Harmony does not stop at some pseudo-fashionable wink.

Deviations from what is advocated by the sirens - evaluated as flaws - are, on the contrary, energies that fulfil us, because they allow our Core to take the field: it is the guardian of our uniqueness.

The programme of the Gospels: to become poor in order to enrich, generous in order to give, humble in order to welcome, but profound so as not to fall into self-punishment. Thus, having transformed the way we look at ourselves, we wake up and start again.

This is how He will come to serve (v. 37): if we are ourselves.

 

Here is the Treasure, the torch that does not smoke, the strength and the uneven balance of the Mission; thanks also to our possible sense of madness, which belongs deeply to us.

Together with fraternity and the sharing of goods [cf. last Sunday], the lamp that is lit is taking care to let ourselves be recognised as lords in the Lord (vv. 37, 42, 44). So that we may become freer.

Eucharistic breath. For a service-rest in being.