Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “ 'Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand” (Mt 3,2). Jesus' call to conversion is always valid for a Christian on the path to Gospel perfection. Great St Teresa of Avila always reminded her sisters that they entered the convent not for an easy life but to fight a battle. However this spiritual battle concerns everyone not only nuns and priests. There is always something against which we must fight, the 'old' me, my selfishness which never gives the 'new' me a rest. Jesus says this clearly: “anyone who wants to follow me, must renounce self …”.
The disciple of Christ is familiar with the dynamic of renunciation which opens the heart to charity, a gift of God par excellence. Without this dynamic there can be no authentic love or discipleship. It is “dynamic” because it is a continual “journeying” a “becoming”, so that Jesus may “become” in the disciple, that the latter may “ form the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself” (Eph, 4, 13), as Saint Paul so beautifully puts it. In the Gospel we find Christ's lapidary words: “ unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven” (Mt 18, 3). This is the “becoming” of the Saints who are the Lord's disciples par excellence! They understood that the perfect man grows only if the 'old' man dies and vice versa. In the struggle between the two, there can be only one victor: selfishness, the dynamic of the 'old' man, or charity, the dynamic of the 'new' man. These two dynamics cannot co-exist. Selfishness in fact leaves no room for charity while the latter, in a soul which renounces self, spreads pushing out self-love, overcoming resistance charity opens the heart to freedom: freedom of charity, freedom of man freed by Christ, ransomed by His Love.
John the Baptist describes the dynamic of the 'new' man when he says: “He must grow greater, I must grow less”. In other words, if we wish to make Christ's grace, that is God's charity, grow in us, we must renounce ourselves! All told the dynamic of renunciation is consequential, logical: how can I free myself from self if I still possess self? I cannot free myself from my ambitions unless I renounce them, and the more they knock at the door, the more I must push them away. If I fail I will succumb and lose Jesus, who wishes to free me and fill me with Himself! The more we love the new man, the more we will ignore the old man with his longing for appearance, appreciation, power…
As Paul teaches in the mentioned letter to the Ephesians: “ Now that is hardly the way you have learnt Christ, unless you failed to hear him properly when you were taught what the truth is in Jesus. You were to put aside your old self, which belongs to your old way of life and is corrupted by following illusory desires. 23Your mind was to be renewed in spirit so that you could put on the New Man that has been created on God's principles, in the uprightness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4, 20-25).
Jesus comes towards each of us, to clothe us in Himself, his virtues, to make us new creatures, the real creature we are destined to become. In fact Jesus is the new man in us and the old man is I who does without God, the I deceiver, the I falsifier!
How false in fact is the perception of this old man, how false the vision of his I focused on self; a vision of reality totally different from that of the new man. It is enough to think of death! How opposite are the two visions: the new man sees it as a passing over, a definitive leap into eternity, the old man instead, pretends not to see death, he ignores it, pushes it away as if it did not concern him.
Falsified by ego, the reality of things looks quite different from what it truly is in front of God. The logic of selfishness, ego focussed on self, not freed by God, falsifies our perception of reality. God created us for Himself, for eternal happiness, he gave us intelligence and reason destined truly to full communion with His Intelligence, His Reason and His Love! But this the old man cannot see, he sees no further than his own limited horizon.
There comes to mind the miracle of the blind man in Bethsaida, who is healed by Jesus. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Then, putting spittle on his eyes and laying his hands on him he healed him. The evangelist Mark says at the end about the poor blind man: “ he could see everything plainly and distinctly” (cfr. Mk 8, 22-26). The same happens when we repent: we must allow Jesus to take our hand, to lead us out of ourselves, to touch us with his healing Presence which makes us new creatures with open eyes which see everything ' plainly and distinctly' in the light of God! (Agenzia Fides 30/1/2008; righe 53, parole 812)
