What should we do? This is the
question that always arises in us when we listen to a radical call and we do
not know how to make concrete our response. John Baptist does not propose to
them religious rites or norms or precepts. It is not really about doing things
or fulfilling duties, but rather about a new way to be, about living more
humanly, unfolding what is already in our hearts. It is, in substance, about
the desire for a life that is more just, more dignified and more fraternal. What
is most decisive and realistic is to open our hearts to God, looking with
attention to the needs of those who suffer. The Baptist knows how to sum up his
reply to them with a formula that is brilliant for its simplicity and truth: Whoever has two cloaks should share with
the person who has none and whoever has food should do likewise. It is that
simple and clear. What can we say in the face of these words, we who live in a
world where more than a third of humanity live in misery, struggling each day
to survive? Do we not, meanwhile, continue filling our closets with all kinds
of cloaks and stocking our refrigerators with food? And what can we Christians
say in the face of this call that is so simple and so human? Should we not
start to open the eyes of our hearts so that we may become fully conscious of
this insensitivity and slavery that keeps us subservient to an affluence that
prevents us from being more human? While we continue to be worried, and rightly
so, about many aspects of today’s Christianity, we are unaware that we are
“captives to a bourgeois religion.” Christianity as we live it does not seem to
have the power to transform the affluent society. On the contrary, it is this
very society that is diluting what is best in Jesus’ religion, emptying our
following of Christ of such genuine values as solidarity, advocacy on behalf of
the poor, mercy and justice. That is why much more must we value, and be
thankful for, the effort of so many people who rebel against this “captivity”
by committing themselves to concrete acts of solidarity and by cultivating a
lifestyle that is simpler, more austere and more human: closer to the Son of
Man that has no place to lay his head[1] •
AE
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario