In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Sunday 18 August 2019

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C

 Word for today
The Gospel of Luke 12:49-53

Conductor

Electrical circuits work through the movement of electrical charges within the atomic structure of material. In other words, the good conductive properties of a material depend on its physical structure. Matter is made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of a nucleus and a variable number of peripheral electrons distributed in different orbits. Simply said, atoms are like tiny solar systems: the nucleus - the sun - which makes up almost all of the atom's mass, is made of protons and neutrons and has a positive charge. The peripheral electrons - the planets - have a negative charge and negligible mass, but there is a specific number of them so that they balance the positive charge of the nucleus. Because of electrical alterations, one or more electrons - the planets - can escape the atom’s orbit. That is the moment when the atom - the sun - lacking some of its electrons, finds a new magnetic balance and assumes a positive charge and becomes an ionized atom.
The electrons that chose to escape the atom’s orbit are free negative charges and they constitute the elemental particles responsible for electrical phenomena. The electrons that left the atoms are thus responsible for energy’s transmission into material. This is why the electrical current can easily go through some materials, the good conductors, while it finds resistance in others, the bad conductors. The worst conductors are called insulators.
This is the fire Jesus came to bring on earth, and this is why He fervidly wished that the fire was already lit. This is why Jesus said He did not come to bring peace on earth, but division. He came to reveal that the physical law that allows material to be good or bad conductors of energy is based on laws operating according to the spiritual and psychic dimensions even before the physical one. Paradoxically, Jesus was teaching physics, not metaphysics.
Jesus did not open the doors to knowledge with regard to a new religion, but to the cosmic laws of electromagnetism, which are the same laws ruling the spiritual dimension.
Human material, all of humanity, is made of an infinite number of atoms which are families and relationships. Each atom is made of a nucleus - the mother and the father - and the children which, in this metaphor, represent the electrons. The sun is the nucleus which transmits life and the children are the planets gravitating around it within a certain energetic equilibrium. This atomic system, the family, is necessary to  transmit life and to educate, protect and care for the children’s growth, and it is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. This vital system can nevertheless become isolating, static human material if the children - the electrons - are unable or decline to leave it. This is the burning fire Jesus wished to bring to men’s hearts.
Jesus wished to confirm to humanity that in order to become, in the name of God and the gospel, good conductors of vital, divine energy, men ad women may find themselves in the situation of having to live strong opposing forces within their very family and be subject to opposition and division. The gospel’s proposal, the Happy Way, leads human beings out of the family’s circuit: this is the only way for them to become good conductors of divine energy for humanity. Those who, even after having made some important choices in/for their life, are unable to distance themselves from their umbilical cords and the emotional possession of familiar relationships, become dangerous insulators for humanity. They do not conduct or transmit energy, they are hypo-energetic, switched off; they become cold and inevitably freeze themselves, the earth and life.
In a world in which the family structure, with its affective attachments, possession and control, has become the most isolating material on earth, Jesus proposes that His children learn to courageously let go of the nucleus and to start moving in God’s kingdom free and full of energy. If the electrons do not leave the nucleus, they will not be able to become good conductors of life’s energy, of wellbeing, happiness, true peace, love, God.
This is the fire Jesus wishes to light as soon as possible in people’s hearts and minds. It is obvious that trying to realize this physical and spiritual law will bring inevitable divisions, misunderstandings, differences, disagreements, but physics is physics and not debatable.
Jesus is perfectly aware that this new and revolutionary approach in family relationships will not bring peace but war, will not bring unity but division, and He is not afraid to say so. But it is not practicing this physical law, not knowing it, not making it one’s own that really leads to wars, divisions, tiredness and sadness.
Letting go of the nucleus that transmitted life to us is an absolutely spiritual matter, an interior one. One cannot let go out of resentment or because one is intolerant, or out of fear or annoyance. One cannot leave the nucleus to run away from it; one needs to make a choice, and to leave out of love, because of life’s call to become human material, good conductors of energy. Distancing oneself from the nucleus because of marriage or other choices is not enough, it is necessary to stop being planets gravitating around that sun, to stop being children, the children of the nucleus. This is one of the main reasons why so many marriages, which are potentially new life’s atoms, founded by children who did not leave the nucleus instead of by free men and women, end in division, separation and their inevitable return to the nucleus. We are God’s children, not children of the nucleus which transmitted life to us; we are children of the kingdom of God, not of our families. Resentment, hate, rage and tension are not useful to realize this process. What is needed is great determination and love for the divine Energy, which will be able to pass through us for the good of earth and life. 
If this process takes place correctly, and children stop being children and become men and women who can properly conduct energy, by letting go of the nucleus, the wonderful thing that can happen is that, just as in physics, even the original nucleus – the mother and father - if they have the light and inner wisdom to live with thankfulness and grace this event - will transform their balance and energy state. The original nucleus will transform itself from being a closed nucleus trying to keep its electrons - children and grandchildren – within its orbit to being a new one, renewed in its balance and energy, available, vital, lovely, powerful, very useful to humanity and God’s kingdom.
This will allow the children to realize their divine task and the family’s nucleus will grow old while rejuvenating and rejoicing over a full, healthy, happy life spent as good conductors of divine energy.