Dear brothers and sisters, Fiat!
On this Sunday Jesus' discourse is very severe towards those who honor God only with their lips but not with their hearts, that is, without deep faith and religion. Today's Gospel calls for a severe re-reading of our way of believing, expressing and manifesting faith. Jesus emphasizes interiority. His teaching aims to eradicate the superficial practice of a purely external ritualism. True religion begins with a return to the heart. More than nine hundred times in the Bible there is the term heart: it is not to be understood as a simple heart muscle, nor as the symbol of feelings or affectivity. The heart, in the language of the Bible, is the place where actions and dreams are born, where one chooses life or death, where one distinguishes what is true from what is false. Christ invites us to a radical change of gear and direction. He invites us to a serious conversion of our hearts and our lives. The Anthropology of Jesus is the anthropology of the pure heart.
I am always struck by the way most of our Christians confess. I would like to premise that confessing with the intent to convert is a very complex matter that truly requires the help of God's grace. One cannot help but reflect on the accusation of sins that are normally listed: the occasional absence from Sunday Mass, a few bad words, forgetfulness or distraction in morning and evening prayer. Usually it all ends there. What about the rest?
In today's Gospel, Jesus lists twelve real sins that are never confessed: "impurity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, foolishness". It is significant that Jesus, in this context, did not refer directly to the commandments written in the Decalogue, but to the heart of man, where the vices that contaminate him, deteriorating his relationship not only with his fellow men but also with God, have their seat.
Jesus concludes, "the things that come out from within are what defile." For St. Paul, our heart is identified with our conscience. In fact, it is precisely from a conscience stained by sin that all the evil that a person can do to himself and others derives. Jesus does not disavow the written law, but by locating the origin of good and evil in man's conscience, he affirms that it becomes alive and active only through the mediation of man and his personal search inspired by faith.
This, too, is one of the glaring ways in which our relationship with God is reduced to a few formalities while neglecting what is essential. True and authentic faith is of a different and higher quality. Faith impels us to a careful and rigorous analysis of our lives; it demands a linear coherence in our behavior; it reveals the innermost hiding places of the heart; it removes the mask of insincerity; it denounces the murkiest thoughts and desires; it shakes off false security; it favors the awakening of consciences; it denounces hypocrisy.
Today the Lord repeats to us that it is not enough to know His commandments, but it is important to live an authentically Christian life with commitment and faith; a life in conformity with all that He teaches us.
In the passage of August 19, 1900, Jesus explains to Luisa, through a simile, how even in holy things one does not so much seek God, but rather oneself.
If a young man got married, and his wife, taken by love for him, wanted to be always with him, without detaching for one moment, without caring about the other duties of a wife to make this young man happy, what would he say? He would appreciate her love, but he would certainly not be content with her conduct, because this way of loving would be nothing but a sterile, infertile love, which would bring harm rather than fruit to that poor young man. And little by little this strange love would cause him bother rather than delight, because all the satisfaction of this love is of the young lady. And since a sterile love has no wood with which to feed the fire, very soon it reduces itself to ashes, because only an operative love is lasting, while other loves vanish with the wind like smoke, and then one reaches the point of becoming annoyed, and of not caring about, and maybe even of despising, that which one used to love so much.
Such is the conduct of those souls who care only about themselves – that is, about their satisfaction, about fervors, and anything that pleases them – saying that this is love for God, while it is all their satisfaction. In fact, one can see from their deeds that they do not care about His interests and the things that belong to Him; and if what satisfies them is missing, they no longer care about Him, and they even reach the point of offending Him. Only an operative love is what distinguishes the true from the false lovers – everything else is smoke.