Readings: Lv 19,1-2.17-18 / Ps 102 / 1 Cor 3.16-23 / Mt from 5.38 to 48
PERFECT
Perfect?! Yes, last Sunday we had already realized that the Lord was aiming high, but on Sunday his own words take on a tangent, making excessive and almost utopian. Created for happiness, to be called and light taste, able to get to the bottom of things because - after all - free: so far - perhaps, in some way - we had arrived. But to accept the invitation of the gospel of the final day just seems crazy: "You, therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48).
Proportions
to help his disciples to understand the radical proposal of the Gospel, the Master calls the Torah of Moses, in which it is written: 'Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth "(5.38). It is the so-called law of retaliation (from Lat. Thallium / talis , 'something like entity'), which set a limit to the thirst for revenge, the right of recourse of those who have received an insult. There seem to be a starting point and common ground too remote for us, raddled barbarians of the third millennium, that we need new scripts and new instructions to build solidarity and fair civilization. In fact, specifying a size proportionate to the offense, the rule of God established a boundary for the reaction that always follows a sustained abuse. So the Lord began to educate humanity towards its destiny of universal brotherhood, teaching enjoy it, not to exceed the thirst for justice. Already this sacrosanct principle of human society is a good reminder for our contemporary world, where the appropriateness of actions (and reactions) can deal only with the principle of selfishness raised to the level of freedom. How many reactions are enormous indeed capable of giving every day, when we drink coffee in the morning until the evening we lie down in bed tired! How many times have our hearts are too warm or too remains insensitive to the amazing diversity of the other. How many times 'Sbrocchi' (slang Roman, nda), doing stupid things and evil, perhaps taking it with those who has nothing to do with our empty and our loneliness. How many times - often without realizing it - we put the burden of sin on the shoulders of others, because we have not understood yet that groped to oppose "the wicked" (13.39) is useless. Indeed.
Imitation
this bad habit, which leads to angry, a thousand times a day and implode in endless frustrations, is a point on which the Lord Jesus allows some advice: "if one slaps you on the right cheek, you turn to him the other also, and those who want to take you to court and take your tunic, let him have your cloak "(13.39 to 40). Going beyond the natural embarrassment that we feel just in listening to these guidelines - let alone practice them - we can reveal a surprising wisdom. In fact, when we respond to evil with evil, anger with aggression, we are allowing others to decide the direction of our lives. We are no longer independent, but camouflage, that is imitative. Our freedom is replaced, or at least fully conditioned by the freedom of those who decided to put a spoke in the wheels. Even St. Francis, doing enormous experience of brotherhood, had noticed this mechanism. He wrote to his brothers, "the servant of God must regret anything except sin. And in whatever way a person sinned, and because of this sin, the servant of God, no longer guided by charity, nor take trouble and anger builds up itself as a treasure that offense. The servant of God that is angry or is disturbed by nothing, really nothing of our own lives. And he is blessed because, render to Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's, is not nothing for himself "(Warning XII, FF 160). We find an echo of the same thought in the book of Leviticus, which says: "coverai not hate in your heart against your brother, accuses openly your neighbor, so you do not upload a sin for him "(Lev 19:27). The Lord does not want us stoically unperturbed in the midst of shock and beatings, but free also in difficulties. Our life begins or when it returns to be extraordinary (re) start thinking of it as unique, original and not photocopies of the fading life of another, always too injured or affected, instead of our bravest performers mature freedom.
disproportions
Until we become responsible for our acts and actors, fleeing from the tyranny the maze of feelings and rationality exasperated, can play only impossible radical perspective that the Lord Jesus did not hesitate to proclaim to all: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ... In fact, if you love those who love you, what reward have you? "(13,44.46). It is true: If we do not become extraordinary, "perfect" (5:48) and "holy" (Lev. 19:2) who are living there? Sao Paulo - turning to a young and immature Christian community - launched a heartfelt appeal: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor 3:16). The reason that the basis of our correspondence to the radical the gospel can not be born from the experience of feeling loved fiercely and tenderly by a God who is there to guard it jealously, as St. Paul writes: "You are Christ and Christ is God" (3:23). Our life is a call to exit continuously from pens of half-measures simply because he belongs to God, who seems to have no doubts about our potential, "Be holy, for I the Lord your God, am holy" (Lev 19 , 2). Although the path towards perfection, that is to brotherly love, I know many stages and needs a lot of season to mature, there is only an adverb that can take us all the way: for free. Verification of unconditional love you have only the face of obstacles, in the midst of persecution and the enemies. They return to teach the words of Saint Francis of Assisi: "Our friends are those who unjustly inflict hardships and distresses us, ignominy and insult, pain and suffering, martyrdom and death, and we must love them as much, because of what they we deal, we have eternal life "(XXII RnB 0.3-4, FF 56).
Perhaps it is worth - in the coming days - check in the light of the gospel, the register of our friends and our presumed enemies. Then, perhaps, stop repeat that the circumstances are not favorable (and if ever?). And start - yes, again - to live peacefully and responsibilities, the task of loving. No reservations. To make "extraordinary" (Mt 5.47) our (and others) passing through this world.
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