The end of mission is the missionary’s joy: he becomes God’s child. But it is also the Son’s joy, who dances at the Father’s tune, because children are born to Him. It is the most beautiful joy: that of the Father/Mother because of the children who are born, and that of the Son because of the brethren who came to life. We are at the peak of the Gospel: a meteorite fallen from John the Evangelist’s sky, a wandering rock come down from a very high mountain. We are God’s joy, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Jesus tells His disciples that to see this explosion of joy is the supreme beatitude, the fulfillment of every promise (Luke 10:23ff). The ultimate mission completion is for us to share the Trinity’s dance. What God is by nature, we are by grace: we have His Spirit, His life, His love. We are called and really are His children, even if our condition is not yet fully manifested (1 John 3:1ff). It is, however, revealed to us in this sublime scene. It is like a snapshot not so much of what God does for us, but especially of how He feels about us. It is beyond every possible desire we may have: we are precious in His eyes and worthy of esteem, because He loves us (Isaiah 43:4). The Father loves us of a unique, total love as He loves the Son; and the latter loves us with the very same Father’s love. God loves us more than He loves Himself: on our behalf, He has given up His own life in the Son (Cf. John 17:23; 15:9.13; 3:16). God is in love with His creatures (Saint Catherine); He loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3).
“It was then that (Jesus) danced in the Holy Spirit” – Jesus jumps and dances with uncontainable happiness. It is the time when the Seventy-Two come back from their mission; it is like an anticipation of the mission completion, when every person will recognize his/her dignity as God’s child and brother/sister of all. Our history points to that hour, to the exultation of the Father and the Son in the Spirit. From this everlasting dance, issues the salvation time: Jesus’ time, God’s everlasting “today” that makes itself present to every human being by means of announcement and reception.
“I bless You, Father” – The Son’s exultation exalts the Father. Jesus witnesses to God’s paternity: He is the Son who, on behalf of the brethren, reveals the God who nobody has ever known.
“For hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children” – Infants are wordless, they only know saying: “Abba, Father.” This original love experience is the foundation of every existence: without it, every wisdom and prudence of grown up people generates nothing but unhappiness and fear.
“Yes, Father, for this is what it pleased You to do” – The Son’s joy is a “yes” to the Father’s joy who, as He is the beginning and the end of His life, now, by means of mission, He is the same also for His brethren, and through them for every creature. God would be maimed if He lacked one of us: more than an artist without his masterpiece, He would be like a father deprived of his son/daughter.
“Everything has been entrusted to Me by My Father” – The Son has and is, because of a gift: what the Father has and is.
“No one knows who the Son is except the Father and who the Father is except the Son” – The Father’s treasure is His knowledge/love of the Son: His very being is of and for the Son; His love for the Son is His very life. And the Son is the same as the Father. His treasure is His knowledge/love of the Father: His very being is of and for the Father; His love for Him is His very life. This love is called Holy Spirit (=God’s life), the only kiss, breath and life of both.
“And those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” – The Son’s will is the Father’s: to communicate to the children/brethren their love. But love doesn’t eat away neither suppresses otherness; on the contrary, it creates it by respecting every diversity. All of us are accepted in the bosom of the Trinity: as the Father and the Son are one in their mutual love, in the same way, we are one among ourselves and with Him. By means of love, at last, God is all in all and in all creatures. © Popoli – www.popoli.info
