S
TRENNA
2010
by Pascual Chávez Villanueva
THEL GOSPEL TO THE YOUNG
TIME ANDTHE KINGDOM
The only meaning of life consists in helping to establish the Kingdom of God (Leo Tolstoy).
The Gospel of Mark, the oldest one, presents the beginning of the preaching of Jesus with a summary short and simple but of extraordinary density: “The time has come and the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and believe the Good News” (Mk 1,15). In a certain way the whole of the message of Jesus can be found in these four short inseparable expressions.
“The time has come”: the whole of the history of Israel can be considered from the perspective of the relationship between God and His people. At the heart of it, the promise of the Messiah and the waiting for its fulfilment. Down the centuries Israel passed through various vicissitudes, for the most part negative: wars with its neighbours, the division of the Kingdom, deportations, the destruction of the city and of the Temple, religious persecution … and yet the hope never died, because it always hoped in God, Faithful to his promises. With Jesus the waiting comes to an end.
“The Kingdom of God is close at hand.” This constitutes the main element of the “fulfilment / fullness.” It is not a question of setting up a new socio-political system, in opposition to human kingdoms, a sort of Jahwistic Theocracy, but of his Lordship over the chosen people and the whole human race; as the liturgy says, a “Kingdom of justice, love and peace” linked to the person of Jesus; Origen, in an original expression, declares that Jesus in himself is the Kingdom (Autobasileia): accepting the Kingdom means accepting Jesus in one’s own life.
All of this appears even clearer in the third phrase, which is just a single word: “Repent.” Repentance or conversion, a change of direction as Jesus invites, has its own original significance. The Greek term, metanoia, refers, rather than to a more faithful observance of the Law to a change in the way of thinking and judging, to a change of heart.
“Believe the Good News,” expresses this conversion in practical terms. Jesus invites us to open ourselves to the Love of God, which appears in a new, definitive and disconcerting manner. The Gospels do not hide the fact that the preaching of Jesus is a “sign of contradiction” (cf Lk 2,34). It is sad to have to recognise that his message, he himself were not for everyone a “good news,” on the contrary it was an ill-fated and unacceptable news, which led him to the cross.
Among the many passages in the Gospel which show this, we may recall the scene in the Synagogue at Nazareth (Lk 4,18s). “The Lord’s year of favour” the general amnesty which Jesus proclaims is not well received by those, closed in their own self-sufficiency, who feel no need for God’s forgiveness: “I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners” (Mk 2,17; Mt 9,13; Lk 5,32). For this reason “the tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say”, because they felt far from God; while those who felt safe because of their observance of the Law did not recognise that the Love of God is always Grace, that is: a free gift. These fundamental aspects of the preaching of the Kingdom of God by Jesus appear in the parables. The reaction of the people of Israel to the teaching of Jesus has continued, through the centuries, in the life of Christians. We too feel enthusiastic when we think that we are living in the fullness of time and the Kingdom of God is among us; but when accepting this Kingdom implies a total change of mentality and of life, then the problems start. We would like everything to come to us “on a plate,” so it is difficult for us to accept that God wants our free response and our collaboration in the building of his Kingdom. On the other hand, we should not experience conversion as a “penance” or as a “punishment.”
For Don Bosco genuine conversion is inseparable from joy; it cannot be otherwise since it consists in welcoming Jesus and the Good News that God is our Father and loves us, and we cannot live as his sons and daughters if we don’t live as brothers and sisters among ourselves. The person who does not want to repent lives in the darkness, in solitude, in sadness. It is sufficient to recall the joy of the Good Shepherd when he puts the lost sheep on his shoulders, or the woman who finds the money she had lost, or the father whose son “was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found” (cf Lk 15). In Don Bosco’s writings we find this connection between conversion and joy, as in the Life of Michael Magone which I invite you to read again. His change of life, realised in the sacrament of Penance, enabled him to savour that same joy and peace that he so envied in his companions, and to enjoy the practices of piety which before had been difficult: it is the start on the path of holiness which in Don Bosco’s Oratory, consisted in “always being cheerful.”
